


A Cure for the Calling

by frenchelle45



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/M, Gen, Misunderstandings, Other, Second Chances, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2020-07-31 10:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 51,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20113456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frenchelle45/pseuds/frenchelle45
Summary: "I understand wanting a cure for the Calling. It's been years since I stopped taking lyrium," Cullen said. She gasped, hands flying to cover her mouth. He didn’t move away from her, even though they were now standing close enough to kiss. He just looked down at her, a little proud smile on his face. “I’m trying to replicate it for others. For anyone who wants to leave the Order. A life of service shouldn’t be a death sentence. The Templars deserve better. And—so do the Wardens. You came to the right place, Warden Commander Amell.”Hope rose in her chest for the first time in a long time. She grinned up at him.“Call me Ivy. Just like old times,” she said.





	1. Chapter 1

Skyhold really was beautiful. Ivy Amell had stopped three times already to admire it on her way across the mountains. It was simple, imposing, the gray stones washed almost white with time. She liked it more because it was still, in a way, a ruin. Ostagar was a ruin. Redcliff was dotted with ruins. The shore outside the Circle Tower where she’d spent her whole childhood was lousy with the remnants of old forts and temples. All of Fereldan was scarred with the remnants of old wars, old churches, old power struggles.  
She travelled alone, as always. She wore her staff openly on her back, these days, but it was only an old twist of oak from the Elder Tree. Nothing fancy. Her hooded cloak was dark red when she bought it, but now it was mottled brown in places from old blood stains that never quite came out. Her leathers were worn enough to be soft. But nothing she had was new, or expensive, or ornate. No one who saw her would think, *there goes the Hero of Fereldan!* Which was good. When people knew who she was they asked her for things. As if she had run around ten years ago doing a million different chores for a million different people because she *liked* it. All those little tasks were a small price to pay for gathering an army big enough to break the Blight, but she wasn’t trying to win over hearts and minds anymore.  
Now, if the Inquisition happened to have an excellent blood mage, and that mage wanted something? She’d do as many little chores as she had to to get on their good side.  
The big stone bridge that led into Skyhold was just as sturdy as it looked from afar. No crumbling masonry or anything. The walls looked just as imposing. She took a closer look. All masonry crumblers over time. But it looked like the stone parts of Skyhold were not held together by any mud and straw concoction—they were just fitted very closely together.  
She’d seen small forts, ancient and low to the ground, built much the same way. But nothing so big. It had to be put together by magic. Just to get the stones together at the right angle higher up the wall, that would take a mage. Or a team of mages.  
The portcullis was open. Open and, she noted with disapproval, rusted. The muddy grass and gravel just inside the gate was teeming with people. Just, milling about. Checking out the sunshine, maybe. As though there weren’t plenty of it to go around up here in this sunblasted hold. She stopped the first person she saw who looked young, too young to have seen her during the Blight.  
“Excuse me,” she said, with a smile. She had a good smile. Always had. The young woman she’d stopped waited politely for her to make her request. “I’m looking for your spymaster.”  
Leliana the spymaster. Her old friend had told her all about it in her letters. Well, she’d told her that she was doing it. That the Inquisitor, a young Dalish man from clan Lavellan, shared Ivy’s views on morality. Which meant someone was keeping her old friend from murdering every obstacle that life threw in her path.  
Ivy made a mental note to thank the Inquisitor for that while she was here.  
Leliana’s letters also included news about anyone she thought Ivy would be interested in. The fate of Schmooples, her beloved nug, and all its progeny. The latest confirmed and safe-to-be-read-by-strangers gossip from Alistair’s court—he was still making a fool out of himself over Elena Cousland, apparently. The fact that Morrigan and her young son were staying in Skyhold, ostensibly being helpful. The latest whereabouts of Zevran, Shale, and Ogrhen. And the fact that Cullen freaking Rutherford, a man she’d last seen ranting and raving in the Circle Tower, was the leader of the Inquisition’s forces. And *doing a good job*.  
Somehow.  
“Mistress Leliana has been spending more time in the Chantry of late. You might find her there,” the young woman said. She then nodded, politely, and went about her day. No one recognized Ivy. Not even here, in the entryway of the mighty Inquisition.  
She’d have to speak to Leliana about that.  
There were no helpful signs to point her on her way. She had to ask where the Chantry was twice. But she did find it, eventually, nestled in a bright courtyard garden. She opened the door without knocking.  
Leliana was standing inside. Her old friend still kept her bright red hair cut short, but now she wore a cowl that gave her the illusion of long hair. Her purple mail and leathers were well made, form fitting, and had to be a custom job. She had several cups and bottles and bowls up on the altar before the stone carving of Andraste. And when she heard the door open, she looked up.  
“Ivy!” she cried, voice shrill with excitement, and she launched herself at the Warden. Ivy found her arms full of bard. Leliana hugged her tightly, and did not let go for a long time. When she finally did, it was to draw back with a bright smile. “I’ve been waiting for you! My scouts saw you approach. What took you so long?”  
“It’s not like there’s signs to tell me where the Chantry is in this place. I’m glad you saw me, I was worried. Your people didn’t seem to recognize me,” Ivy said. Was it all a ruse? No, because Leliana’s smile turned rueful.  
“That’s probably because they *didn’t* recognize you. But I did, when I saw you over the battlements. Or at least I recognized that staff. I can get you a new one. A staff made entirely of Everite, if you want,” Leliana said. Her hands clasped Ivy’s. But the Warden just shook her head.  
“I have enough problems with bandits as it is, thanks.”  
“That’s reasonable. But you know, you don’t have to travel alone. Even if the Wardens don’t—well. That’s another discussion.” Leliana waved away whatever words she’d choked back. She led Ivy over to the altar. It was covered in an absolute feast. Bottles of wine, plates of cheese and soft white bread, Antivan sweets, and grapes piled high. Ivy’s stomach rumbled. “You must be hungry, after your long walk here. Please help yourself.”  
“Don’t mind if I do,” Ivy grinned. She piled a plate high. So did Leliana. They sat down, straddling one of the pews, facing each other with their food between them. Just like old times. Except now it was a pew, not a log. And the food was better. The wine was a lot sweeter than Ivy expected. It tasted almost like honey.  
“Where’s Morrigan? I heard she joined up. You two finally getting along?” Ivy asked.  
“Absolutely not. We aren’t ever going to be as close as either of us are with you, you know. She’s at the Winter Palace with Kieran. Her son. They should be back in the next few days in you want to see her,” Leliana said. Ivy raised her eyebrows at the mention of Morrigan’s son. Alistair’s son, too, she supposed.  
“And what is little Kieran like?” Ivy asked. The boy was, after all, host to the soul of an Old God.  
“He’s no more demonic than I would expect of any child Morrigan raised,” Leliana said. Ivy laughed at that. “Please eat as much as you want, don’t be shy. I wanted to make sure you had a chance to eat and talk before everyone descended upon you. Even if you are only here for a day – and I hope you’ll stay much longer than that! – everyone will want to talk to you. Our travels during the Blight and what you were able to accomplish with next to no resources has been a real inspiration to us all.”  
“About that.” Ivy took a considered sip of the honey wine. “Congrats on closing the Breach. That’s a real accomplishment. I’ll say the same to your Inquisitor. And killing Corypheus at last is no little feat, either. If he’s really dead. But just between you and me, Leli, what on Earth have you all been doing? We gathered an army, changed the political future of every power group in Fereldan, and saved the whole freaking world with nothing but the weapons on our backs and the wits in our heads. You guys have an army of your own. A castle. Political alliances. And one little revolution gave you this much trouble?”  
“There’s also the matter of the Breach,” Leliana said, her lips twitching. Ivy waved a hand.  
“One little world-ending emergency. One. Come on,” she said. Leliana sighed.  
“It’s not just about putting a stop to the bad things. It’s also about building a future full of good things,” Leliana said.  
That hit Ivy right in the heart. She blinked, and her face went very still, but Leliana didn’t seem to notice.  
“When we were all younger, when the Blight was beginning, we only thought about stopping it. But now we’re older. Hopefully wiser. And as soon as we started addressing the chaos it was clear we could go a step further. We are building Thedas into a better world, Ivy. We’re building futures for ourselves, for everyone,” Leliana said.  
That was the hard, cold center of the resentment Ivy tried very hard to ignore. Leliana had moved on, and up. Alistair was king. Morrigan was apparently magical advisor to the Empress of Orlais, hobnobbing with the big bad Inquisition on the side. Even Cullen, who she remembered as a shy teenage Templar and then a ranting, broken man, was doing well for himself. Building a future.  
And she was just wandering the world, trying to find a way out of the damnation she’d bought herself. Not just to save her own skin, she wasn’t selfish or foolish enough to waste her days on that. But Alistair was king, and he had no heir. Because of the Taint. And when she was Arlessa of Amaranthine and Warden Commander of Fereldan she’d given the Warden’s tainted blessing to so many people that she came to see as dear friends. Even Anders, damn his idiot soul, was one of hers. And she had to find some way out of this corner she’d backed them all into.  
“That’s actually why I’m here,” Ivy said. She managed to speak cheerfully around the burning lump in her throat. “You guys have all done such a great job breaking down the old orders I thought you could help me reverse the Taint. I’m close, Leliana. I’m close but I need better mages to tell me how to go on. People with more experience.”  
“You’ll have any help you want,” Leliana promised. She patted Ivy’s hand. She was colder than she used to be, back when they were younger. She forgot to smile, and her default stare was no longer sad or wistful but icy. Of course, Ivy thought, she’d gotten a lot colder, too. The years were both kind and unkind to them all. “We’ve got the best mages in Thedas here. And more, besides. We can send people to find any materials or artifacts you might be missing.”  
“Oooh. So it’s not all grapes and honeyed wine up here. You guys are the real thing,” Ivy teased. Leliana swatted at her arm. They moved on, drinking the wine and talking about everything, nothing. Shoes. Nugs. The best kind of leather or cloth for a good armor. The latest news from everywhere—Leliana knew everything, about everyone, and there was so much she hadn’t put in her letters. Anyone could read them, after all.  
Eventually, when the wine was dry and their cheeks ached from laughing and their backs ached from sitting, Leliana finally said it. She got quiet, first, draining the dregs of her cup. The light from the windows had faded, so they had only the candlelight now.  
“I’m going to be the Divine,” Leliana said. Ivy reached over, her hands only a little bit unsteady. She clasped Leliana’s hands between both of her own.  
“You’re going to be so brilliant at that,” Ivy said. Her words were only a little bit slurred. “You knew even back in Lothering that you were meant for great things. The Maker chose you, remember? You’re going to be great. *Great.*”  
“Thank you, my friend,” Leliana said. Her voice was very soft.  
They left the bowls and plates in the Chantry, though not on the Altar. Apparently one of the benefits to having a whole huge organization was that someone else would do the housekeeping. They stumbled out into the courtyard garden. Well, Leliana sauntered. Ivy stumbled. She didn’t often drink. It was a liability when you were on your own. So her tolerance was next to nothing.  
In the garden, lit by torches, a huge Qunari and a short armored Tevinter sparred. It looked like they had been at it for hours. Around them, passing around skeins of something, was a motley crew of rogues and warriors. They all wore similar armor. Ivy and Leliana both stopped, at the edge of the grass, to watch the show.  
One last thrust of his huge sword against the smaller man’s shield, and the Qunari stopped the sparring match. Sweat glistened on his bare chest. He wore an eyepatch over one eye, surrounded by scars. His horns were immense. She bet she could do pull-ups on those things. How did he get through doors?  
“Warden!” the big Qunari said. Ivy blinked at him. Beside her, Leliana laughed. “We were hoping you’d come out soon. The two of you were in there for hours! You want a drink?”  
“Ivy, may I introduce The Iron Bull,” Leliana said. She gestured between them. “This is apparently how he greets people he wants to impress. The men around him are his mercenary group, the Bull’s Chargers. Bull, you clearly already know who Warden Amell is.”  
“Indeed I do. Saw her come in. I recognized her from the stories,” the Iron Bull said. He put his huge sword up across his back. Ivy wasn’t sure if she should be reassured or uneasy that this particular man recognized her. “I always wanted to meet you, ma’am. Come on down, have a drink. Half my people here grew up on the legend of how you stopped the Fifth Blight. If you don’t come show them you’re human, they’ll spend all day tomorrow bowing and scraping.”  
Oh, why the hell not.  
“Yeah, sure,” Ivy said. Leliana told her and the Iron Bull how to find her so she could show Ivy to her guest quarters when they were done. And then, she was left with the whole raucus mercenary crew. The Bull’s Chargers were quiet around her at first, but their leader suggested a drinking game that got them all talking. And it wasn’t exactly a game a person could lose, but after that bottle of wine with Leliana Ivy was definitely losing.  
Several cups in, the Iron Bull threw a massive arm around her shoulders. He leaned in conspiratorily. As drunk as she was, she still readied a spell in case he tried anything. An attack, a kiss, anything at all- she’d freeze him in a huge block of ice.  
“I *love* redheads,” the Iron Bull said. His eye flicked from her face to her bright red hair. “But you, I’m not going to hit on you. The Arishok himself calls you kadan. I might not be in the Qun anymore but there’s some things you just don’t mess with. And the Arishok! If I dared, to, you know, hit on you or whatever, he’d probably appear out of the sky and cut me down.”  
Ivy had to laugh at that. She let her frozen cone spell dissipate unused.  
“Hey, give it a try. I’d love to see Sten again,” she said.  
It was very, very late by the time Bull escorted her up through the Tower into Leliana’s office. But her old friend was still up, of course. Pouring through reports. And she made Ivy walk with her on the battlements outside her tower, drinking water. It was supposed to help her sober up a little before sleep. But mostly it just made her stomach slosh.  
Leliana wasn’t the only one up. Another room across the courtyard had a light on. She could see through the windows from the battlements. The man inside wore an armored chestplate, leathers, and a huge fluffy cloak. He seemed to be reading reports, much like Leliana. The Inquisition never rested.  
Then he rubbed the back of his neck, leather gloves ruffling the blond hair, and a cold pit settled in her stomach. Cullen. That was Cullen. He used to do that exact thing back when he was one of the Templars guarding her.  
Back when they were both idiot children.  
She remembered him as a gangly young man covered in the spikes of the Templar armor. But he was always kind to her, before the misadventure with Jowan. Better than kind. She knew he stared at her when she was reading in the library but he watched out for her, too, barking at the other Templars and acolytes who thought that her late-night study habits meant she was open to being groped or worse. And he’d carried her down to her bed after her Harrowing. As gentle as he could be, wearing that armor with all its edges.  
That was honestly a good way to describe him, wasn’t it? As gentle as he could be, for a Templar.  
But then she left with Duncan. And the Circle fell. And he survived, which was good, but he didn’t survive whole. When she’d found him, just outside the Harrowing Chamber, and he’d told her how he felt about her, her heart leapt in her throat and froze on the next beat. Because all those things she’d wished he would say came tumbling out in venomous spits, full of hatred for everything she was. Everything she represented.  
How did he come to be the military commander of the Inquisition? She’d never thought he was that bright. Maybe it was the stammering, maybe it was the fact that he was a Templar and they were all more brawn than brain, but the idea of him training troops and formulating strategies seemed so odd. And more, the Inquisition was friendly to mages. They took in the rebels. Showed mercy to Alexius. Supported mage rights. How was Cullen a part of any of that? He’d suggested wholesale massacre in case of blood magic before.  
“I see you found our Commander,” Leliana said, beside her. Her friend silently urged her to drink more water. “We can go say hello, if you wish. He would be very happy to see you.”  
“We both know that’s not true,” Ivy scoffed. “And anyway, I wouldn’t be happy to see him.”  
“You don’t have to. Just, if you do run into him while you’re here, I should tell you he’s very different than the tortured young man he was when I first saw him,” Leliana said. Ivy thought about that. Took a drink of water. The stocky, tall man in the window below didn’t look like he had any hard edges. He paced, a scroll held close to his nose. Commander of the Inquisition’s Forces. They called him the Lion of Fereldan, now. Especially now that the Inquisition had closed the Breach for good. She’d heard rumors in Orlais that half the Orlesian nobility wanted to marry him. For the social coup, at least, if not for his apparently attractive form.  
“He’d have to be,” Ivy said.  
  
****************************************************************************************************************************************  
  
No amount of alcohol could make her darkspawn nightmares go away. But it could make her morning, waking up from those nightmares, much worse. Ivy groaned into wakefulness with the light of dawn. It wasn’t enough sleep. But she couldn’t just roll over and try again, not with the nightmares and this pounding headache.  
What she needed was fresh air. Her guestroom was a little musty. It wasn’t helping.  
She slipped some hardtack from her pack and chewed on it meditatively. Just one, because there was bound to be a kitchen with real food around here somewhere, but she wasn’t up for finding it just at the moment. She walked out along the battlements, the outer walls this time. The stonework in this keep was amazing. And the views were incredible. She found a spot where the walls had come down, a little. It looked like something huge had knocked the top of the wall in. She knelt, hardtack finished, and studied the joinders of the rock. It didn’t look like magic was still holding it together. Just gravity, now.  
“You there.” The voice behind her was cold. Clipped. Hoarsely Fereldan. And very familiar. She closed her eyes, reeling a little.  
*Maker turn his gaze on you. No one ever listens. Not until it is far too late. I only pray that your compassion hasn’t doomed us all.*  
The sharpness in his tone was not at all like the young man who’d watched her in the library. It was more like the tormented, bitter, half-mad Templar she’d rescued from the bloodbath in the Tower.  
“Mage.” He continued, sharp and clipped. Military. She steeled herself for a hand to descend on her shoulder, but it didn’t. “I don’t recognize your cloak or your staff. Are you new here? What are you doing on the battlements?”  
Ivy took a deep breath. Then she stood, and turned around.  
He wore the same feathered cloak and soft leathers she’d seen through the window. His hand was on his sword. Ready, as always, to cut her down where she stood. Even though the cloak he wore opened at the chest to show that the Templar symbol was nowhere on his armor.  
He was more handsome than she remembered. Age had filled out his jaw, softened his cheekbones. And his hair was smoothed back now. No longer stiff and wiry with tight curls. When he saw her face, he went blank. Smooth as stone. Even his eyes went wide and froze there. She smiled a little tight smile. He did not smile back. He simply stared with absolutely no trace of any expression.  
“Hullo, Cullen. Long time no see.” Her voice was softer than she wanted it to be. She cleared her throat, and gestured at the keep below them. “This place is amazing. If the Inquisition ever disbands, I’ll be more than happy to take this place off your hands. The Wardens could really make use of this. Soldiers Peak is crazy haunted, you know, it’s really hard to get a good night’s sleep there.”  
“I—Ivy?” Cullen stammered. He was hoarse. Soft, now. He took his hand off his sword and she breathed easier. “What are you—are you actually – what are you doing here?”  
“I came to talk to Fiona again. And see if Leliana could help me. I’m looking for a cure to the Calling,” Ivy explained. He slowly relaxed out of his stunned blank expression and into something that looked more like anxious disbelief. “Having thirty years to live seemed so reasonable back when the Blight started. But now, it doesn’t seem like very much time.”  
“I can understand that,” he said, his voice even softer. He took a half step toward her, but stopped when she tensed.  
“It’s not just for me,” she explained. “I spent so much time putting Fereldan back together. I don’t want it to fall apart in twenty years just because Alistair doesn’t have an heir. And I kind of feel like time is short. Elena Cousland’s not that much younger than I am, her childbearing years are numbered. And our mighty king is so stubborn he’d probably refuse to marry anyone else.”  
Of course, there was always Keiran. The half-demon bastard heir. But only three people knew about that—herself, Alistair, and Morrigan. And it was going to stay that way. Naming him as the next king would only tear the country apart—he was the son of an apostate, even without all the Old God complications.  
“I am sure the Inquisition can help you with that,” Cullen said, echoing Leliana’s sentiments from the night before. “We’ve been friends to the Wardens. I—that is, my men will help any way they can. Have you. . . have you met Dorian? He’s Tevinter. He might have some insight that we lack here.”  
“A Tevinter mage?” Ivy asked. She was shocked to see a smile curl Cullen’s lip. His scarred lip. When did that happen?  
“Among other things. He’s also a terrible cheat at chess. But underneath all the bluster he’s got a keen mind,” Cullen said. Ivy stood and stared at him. Her scrutiny went on long enough that a faint blush rose in Cullen’s cheeks and he started shifting his weight from foot to foot. “What?”  
“How are you friendly with a Tevinter mage?” Ivy asked. “You? After everything you went through, everything you said.”  
“Oh.” Cullen looked as though someone had punched him in the guts. He rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly. The little familiar gesture tugged at her heart. “I want to—I’ve wanted to apologize for a long time, and I—you didn’t – would you walk with me? On the battlements? You’re cornered, between me and that broken stone, and I don’t. . . you should be free to move.”  
“Because you’re going to attack?” Ivy said, sardonically. The look Cullen gave her was sadder and more solemn than she expected.  
“Because you shouldn’t have to worry that I’m going to,” he said. “And if I were you, after the last conversation we had, I’d be worried.”  
That was fair enough. And true. Far too true.  
She joined him, walking beside him. He let her take the outermost position, where she could look out over the mountains. It took him several minutes to collect his thoughts enough to speak.  
“I’ve thought about this. What I would say to you if I ever had a chance. I can’t remember any of what I decided to say,” Cullen said, eventually. Ivy sighed.  
“At least your stammer is better,” she complimented him. He gave her an odd look.  
“I don’t stammer,” he said. Then his eyebrows rose in realization. “I do have—I struggle to find words. When I speak to you.”  
Oh. So it was just her, then.  
If his crush had made him struggle back when they both lived in the Tower, was it shame or fear that made him struggle now?  
“I was wrong,” he said, after another long moment. “I should not have said what I said. I think it all comes down to that. I had my reasons, and Maker knows I’d just been through something terrible, but I should never have said any of that. I am sorry.”  
“Right. Which part? The part about having feelings for me, or the part about how mages are all abominations and you have to oppose everything I am?” Ivy said, her voice tight. Cullen stopped walking and faced her. She stopped, too. It hurt more than it should to talk about this. It was all so long ago. A decade. A lifetime. She should be over it. And she was, she told herself, most of the time. It was just when this man was standing in front of her that she had to think about it. Poke it. And find that it still hurt.  
“I shouldn’t have said any of it,” Cullen said. His eyebrows drew together in a frown. One hand rested on his sword again, in more habit than threat, but that combined with the intensity written in every line of his body made her want to prepare her freezing cone. Just like the night before, with the Iron Bull. “If I wasn’t going to tell you how I felt before, when we were both safe and sane, I shouldn’t have told you when we were neither of those things. And the rest of it—I told you to kill Irving. Begged you to murder everyone left alive in the Tower. That was. . . I am so glad you didn’t do what I asked.”  
“You were awake for days. Tortured. Leliana said so, at the time. She thought. . “ That was probably awkward for them, Ivy realized. To work together when they’d met under such terrible circumstances. “I wasn’t going to kill anyone I didn’t have to. I’m not a monster. You couldn’t have convinced me to do it.”  
“You’re a hero,” he said, simply. The tension in his body was leaking out by inches. Was he always this tall? How did he seem bigger with that ridiculous feathered cloak than he had than he did in the imposing Templar armor? “And I’m thankful every day that you had the sense and courage to ignore me.”  
“Sure.” That hero stuff was flattering. Except, “Why wouldn’t you tell me, when we were both safe and sane? How you felt? I would have. . . I seem to recall you literally running away from me when I flirted with you. Running. Literally.”  
That tilted smile curved his lips again. In this light she could see the gold flecks in his eyes. They hadn’t changed. Even though he was clean shaven now, and had filled out, the eyes were the same.  
“We were in the Tower,” he said, as if it explained everything. When she just stared at him, he continued, “If we had. . . become closer, they might have made you Tranquil. For corrupting a Templar. I wouldn’t have risked that. Not for anything. I had to run, before someone saw me trying to kiss you right there in the hallway.”  
Oh.  
Her cheeks burned, and the warmth in her chest spread through her whole body. She didn’t know what to say. So she just stood there. And he did, too, staring right back at her. Older, hopefully wiser, as Leliana would say. And apparently no longer a Templar.  
“That’s. . . actually pretty romantic,” she said. As romantic as any story she’d ever read. And as many campfires as she’d had to herself over the years, she had read plenty. “But you know, a lot of mages and Templars carry on. Like that. It’s usually an open secret.”  
“Not me,” he said. He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. His eyes narrowed. “I never understood how those Templars could live with it, with knowing they might be condemning their lover. It couldn’t be worth it. We are supposed to-- *they* are supposed to protect people. Not put them in more danger.”  
“They? Not a Templar anymore?” Ivy asked. She glanced at the open, empty expanse of metal on his chest. He certainly no longer wore the trappings. Cullen’s eyes flinched down.  
“Not at all. I’m Inquisition now. Body and soul,” he said. Which was all well and good, and it was nice to be dedicated to a cause, but Ivy didn’t really buy it.  
“I mean,” she said, “if you still command Templars, and you still know how to drain mana, and you still take lyrium, aren’t you a Templar? Whoever you work for.”  
“I no longer take lyrium.” His voice was steady, sure. He stood like a rock in front of her. Like part of the battlement carved out and come to life. He didn’t seem insane. Not at all.  
“Since. . . when?” Lyrium withdrawal could drive someone mad. Could cause them unbearable pain. Could kill them. He looked all right. He looked better than all right—healthy, if a little tired and stubbly around the edges. He couldn’t have been off the lyrium for long.  
“Almost two years,” he admitted. He smiled at the way her eyes went wide and her jaw fell open.  
“You should be dead!” she exclaimed, without thinking. She reached out. She didn’t know many healing spells, but she could help a little bit. He suffered her hand on his chest over his armor without comment. His heart seemed to beat steadily. Her senses, magical and otherwise, could detect no unusual strain on him. He was in better shape this morning than she was, after all that drinking last night. “How are you all right?”  
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He didn’t move away from her, even though they were now standing close enough to kiss. He just looked down at her, a little proud smile on his face. “But I’m trying to replicate it for others. For anyone who wants to leave the Order. A life of service shouldn’t be a death sentence. The Templars deserve better. And—so do the Wardens. You came to the right place, Warden Commander Amell.”  
Hope rose in her chest for the first time in a long time. She grinned up at him.  
“Call me Ivy. Just like old times,” she said. 


	2. A Game of Chess

Cullen took the stairs up to Leliana’s office two at a time. His empty stomach churned. 

He’d thought she was a dream, or a ghost. Of all the mages that haunted his nightmares he saw her face the most frequently. But after they spoke for several minutes and she did not turn into a Tranquil, or a desire demon, or a bloody corpse, he was certain he was not dreaming. She looked much the same as she always had. Bright red hair bound up on the back of her head, big gray eyes narrow with sardonic humor. She had a new scar. Just along her jaw, a mottled red like someone had caught her with acid or fire. But the last twelve years were hardly peaceful. He imagined most Fereldans had new scars—himself included.

Leliana was in her rookery, as always. A few of her agents moved quietly through the room even at this hour. Spies never sleep, apparently, something he had in common with them. Leliana herself was caring for her ravens when he rounded the top of the stairs. She glanced at him with a little half smile to let him know she knew he was there, but then she simply continued what she was doing.

Well, she could talk at the same time. 

“I just dropped the Hero of Fereldan off in our dining hall,” he said, without preamble. Leliana did not so much as raise an eyebrow at his lack of a greeting. “Did you know she was coming?”

“I knew when she arrived. We had a lovely picnic yesterday.” Leliana moved from cage to cage, feeding her feathered messengers. “As you know, Ivy Amell is a dear old friend. Did she seek you out?”

“I ran into her on the battlements. She says she’s here to find a cure for the Calling. Or, to complete the cure she already has. I told her Dorian would be extremely happy to help. No doubt Fiona and Vivienne will join in,” Cullen said. He felt dizzy, and reminded himself to breathe. Seeing her, it reminded him of Kinloch. And nothing that reminded him of Kinloch did him any good. He needed Leliana to tell him something but he couldn’t find the words to wrap around the question hammering in his chest.

“I am sure that’s true.” Leliana’s voice was calm, quiet. As always. Especially in her rookery. She wouldn’t risk upsetting the birds. She didn’t say anything further. He didn’t, either. After a very long moment, Leliana asked, “What is on your mind, Commander?”

Commander. Right. Not Knight-Captain. Or Templar. He took a deep breath, remembering the Arbor Wilds and Adamant and all the days and victories between the person he was now and the person he was the last time he saw her. On the day he was released from the torture chamber concocted by the blood mages of Kinloch hold. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Leliana couldn’t tell him how long Amell would be here. “Why now? The Inquisitor tried to get in touch with her almost a year ago. She didn’t come then. We could have used her help.”

“We managed,” Leliana reminded him. “She has her own responsibilities. Her own worries. As do we all. Ivy has been on her own a very long time, searching for a way to undo the harm she believes she has caused. There is no saving the people she made Wardens when she was at Amaranthine, you know. And I believe she feels some responsibility for the war between the mages and Templars as well. If she had not made Anders a Warden, would the spirit of Justice within him have turned into Vengeance?”

“Of course it would have,” Cullen said. He could admit, now that it was far too late, that there was more in Kirkwall for a spirit of Vengeance than one of Justice. Another travesty he’d been a part of. “Anders was an abomination. He looked human, but he wasn’t truly human from the moment that spirit became part of him. It was always going to end badly.”

Leliana turned around and gave him her undivided attention for the first time in the conversation. She frowned thoughtfully. He’d seen that look on her face right before she suggested elevating Briala instead of saving Celene. It seldom boded well. 

“You were stationed in the Fereldan Circle Tower,” Leliana said. Not a question, more as a fact that she was just now remembering. “Do you remember Wynne?”

He did. He remembered her as a kindly old mage with a sharp sense of humor and very little patience for tomfoolery among the apprentices. And he knew she went to Ostagar, and then with the Wardens after the Tower was taken over by abominations. He nodded.

“Wynne was an abomination. Technically,” Leliana said. 

Cullen felt like someone had punched him in the solar plexus. How could that have happened right under his nose? Under Greigor’s nose? And Irving’s? Wynne was one of the most trusted senior mages in the Tower. If she could be corrupted, if she was in truth an abomination, then the foul creatures could be anywhere. Anyone. Any mage here in Skyhold.

“Don’t look so shocked, Commander,” Leliana said. His jaw was so tight it practically creaked. He simply glared at her. She’d kept this secret? Even after they took in the mages from Redcliff as allies? He’d advocated for protections for all. Protections Leliana had deemed unnecessary, if he recalled right. And all the while she knew that abominations could walk unnoticed among them. 

“She was killed fighting a demon when the Circle Tower came under attack from within,” Leliana continued. He noted that she said killed. Not almost killed. “A spirit of Faith came to her. The same sort of spirit that Cassandra says is used to reverse the Rite of Tranquility. Her faith brought that spirit to her, and it kept her body going. Sustained her. It allowed her to heal us all while we fought the Blight. We would have surely failed without her.”

She would know. If she said that Wynne, an abomination, was the difference between success and failure then he believed her. And he liked to think he was a practical man. Some ends could justify some means, surely. But abominations were unpredictable. Dangerous. And whatever Wynne did in the past, whatever help she rendered the Wardens, the future was a different story. 

“Perhaps that’s true,” he said. “But, could you tell an abomination like Wynne from a regular mage? Could anyone?”

Could some be hidden at Skyhold right now?

“No. No one would know,” Leliana said. She at least did not try to soften the truth. “But let me ask you this, Commander. In your time, have you seen terrible acts carried out by regular men with regular swords and knives?”

“Of course I have.” Especially in Kirkwall, after the Chantry exploded and the entire town went mad. 

“And could you tell that the people responsible for that bloodshed carried that risk within them before they committed those terrible acts?” Leliana asked.

This conversation was giving him a headache, and it was doing nothing for his blood pressure. 

“I take your point,” Cullen said. He bowed his head in farewell, and retreated back toward the stairs. Leliana stopped him just as he began to descend by saying his name.

“I do not think Ivy would be upset if you avoided her while she is here,” Leliana said. Delicacy—had Ivy said she didn’t want to see him? – or exact truth? It probably didn’t matter. 

“Perhaps I shall,” he said. He nodded his thanks, and fled the rookery. Avoiding Ivy Amell was probably a good idea. He’d apologized. He could, probably, apologize again. If the time seemed right. Aside from that, did they really have anything to say to each other?

For the next several days Cullen endeavored to stay out of Warden Amell’s way. He quickly discovered that he could avoid speaking with her, but he couldn’t avoid seeing her.

When he drilled his troops in the morning, she was in the side bailey with Dorian and the Iron Bull, clearly getting pointers in Dorian’s method of using his staff as a cudgel. When he went to eat dinner, she was in the dining hall chatting happily with Leliana and Josephine. He was sure she hadn’t previously known the Ambassador, but apparently any friend of Leliana’s was a friend of hers. When he went to the library to find a book he could read before bed, she was leaned over a wooden table with Dorian among stacks of huge books. 

Worse, now that he saw her in his waking hours, he saw her in his dreams more often. And the dreams were getting worse. He hadn’t had this much trouble since right after Haven.

Three days after Amell arrived in Skyhold, he was playing chess in the courtyard garden with Dorian. Trying to get his mind off her. Which was futile, ultimately, because as soon as they set the board up she came out to the garden with a book. Two very young children trailed after her. 

She sat down on a bench. The little ones, no doubt the offspring of one of the staff that worked in Skyhold, immediately set to work pulling weeds from the garden. They brought the plants to her. She sorted them into piles next to her on the bench without looking up from her book.

It was a remarkably wholesome pass-time for the star of his worst nightmares.

“It’s your move, Commander,” Dorian said, with a smirk he could actually hear. Cullen wrenched his attention back to the board in front of him. Dorian was already cheating. No doubt taking advantage of his preoccupation. With a scowl, he did his best to focus on the game. 

He managed spectacularly. He focused on the board in front of him so exclusively that he didn’t even notice she was standing there and watching them play until she laughed. He nearly jumped out of his skin. Which, of course, made both mages laugh.

His ears burned. He had no doubt they were beet red. With a tight smile, he made his final move- and revenged his damaged pride on the chess board. 

“Ugh,” Dorian said, sounding almost like Cassandra as he looked down at his captured king. Cullen smirked, not bothering to say the word checkmate. His point was made. But then, to his surprise, Dorian stood up, stretched, and slapped his hand against the Warden’s hand. “I’m tagging you in, Ivy. Beat him for me, will you? On behalf of mages everywhere.”

“Gladly, Tevinter,” Ivy said. Her eyes glinted with mischief. His ears were still burning. But now for an entirely different reason. She sat down across from him and began reordering the pieces. It would be churlish to walk away now. Rude to pretend that he suddenly had pressing business elsewhere. He was trapped by the dictates of courtesy. 

“I didn’t know you played, Cullen,” Ivy said. He wrenched his attention away from his inner monologue and helped her set the board. She chose to play black. Fine by him. 

“Ever since I was a child,” he admitted. His hands were sweating in his leather gloves. He had to take them off. When did this day get so warm? “Mostly I played with my siblings. I have a sister, Mia, who could give anyone a run for their money. I went to see them after we closed the Breach this last time. Apparently she’s been teaching her children her strategies. I almost lost to my six year old nephew.”

Her laughter at that admission had him wondering why he ever spoke at all.

“We played a lot in the Circle. But I haven’t played in years,” she said. She looked at him through her eyelashes, face still tilted toward the board. Was she trying to be coy, or to taunt him? “The Templars never played with us for some reason. I suppose I assumed none of you knew how.”

“Oh, no.” Four moves in. She was fast. And not bad, really. Maybe he should let her win to encourage her to keep playing. With Dorian, next time. “We played in the barracks all the time. But we were expected to keep a certain distance from our charges. In case of blood mages or abominations, there can be no hesitation. But, I’ll admit, I wish now that we had spoken more. Mages and Templars. It was . . . not easier, to cut acquaintances down simply because we never played chess together.”

Ivy gave him a very odd look. He couldn’t even imagine what she must be thinking. They played in silence for a moment. He found that he did not want the game to end—so he didn’t take advantage of the openings she gave him. 

“I see people training together in the Inquisition,” she said. She watched him while she spoke. As if looking for his reaction. “Mages and soldiers and spies. And Templars, too. Both raw recruits and veterans. Your people have taken everyone in. It’s idyllic for now. Was it—was it hard, when you began?”

“There was less friction than you might suppose.” He didn’t speak about this, much. But she was in the Fereldan tower. She saw the pillars wrapped in viscera, the inside-out bodies of abominations. The Templars who fought to protect blood mages, their minds warped beyond recall. She knew how bad it could get. “Mostly just insults hurled at each other. But the people who joined the Inquisition were not those who wanted conflict. Everyone here has been working toward stability.”

“And what future do you see for mages and Templars?” she asked. Her hand hovered over the board. Waiting to hear what he said. It was a serious question from a serious woman. He leaned back and thought of how to phrase his reply. She deserved a real answer. 

“I think mages will always be present, and that magic will always be dangerous. Templars are necessary to ensure that as many people as possible are kept safe,” he said. Her body stiffened. He knew she was thinking back to his words in Kinloch Hold, too. About opposing everything she was. “But we cannot oppose each other.”

She snorted, softly, recognizing the phrase. Her eyes searched his.

“The friction between mages and Templars was always going to erupt into war. The Circles were not set up to foster understanding. Possibly mixed service would do the trick. Healing centers, peacekeeping forces. Something. A common goal is better than a prohibitive structure,” he said. He cleared his throat. “And there must be some way to let Templars. . . retire. Without madness. The sacrifice is too great, otherwise, to be sustainable without the binding of the Chantry. We’ve seen firsthand the way that dependence on lyrium can turn the Order against its purpose.”

“You said you were working on that.” She moved her piece at last, and blew her hair out of her face with a long breath. She slumped back in her chair as if relieved. “I still can’t believe you’re off lyrium. That’s just. . . that’s crazy. Did you put yourself in isolation? Set aside a few months to just rant and rave?”

“Maybe that would have been a good idea. But I was Knight Commander in Kirkwall, and I had to pass off my duties to my second in command. And then there was the journey across the Waking Sea—which was terrible—and then the Conclave blew up and I was helping to build the Inquisition. There simply wasn’t time,” he said. He realized she was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What?”

“When did you go off lyrium?”

“When I decided to join Cassandra. Before leaving Kirkwall,” Cullen said. 

“Maker’s breath, Cullen,” Ivy said. She did not explain her curse. Did that mean she thought him foolish? Brave? A freak? He didn’t dare ask. Her queen was poised to take his bishop. He decided to move the piece, instead of sacrificing it in the interest of getting her queen out of position.

They played in silence. He found his eyes wandering. She did not wear robes, but leathers. And she’d left off the chest piece while she read in the warm garden. So at the moment, she wore only her undershirt. And he could see a smattering of light brown freckles across her collarbone. Her bare arms were freckled, too, and burned light pink at the shoulder. 

“Did you at least have help? Support? Or did you do it alone?” she asked. He blinked at her. Did he do what alone? Lyrium withdrawal? What other option was there? It was hardly a group activity.

“Inquisitor Lavellan was very sympathetic. His patience with me was remarkable,” he said. The Inquisitor had even encouraged him to stay the course when he wavered. Cullen still didn’t know how to thank the man for that trust, the opportunity to redeem himself. “And Cassandra watched me to make sure I would not endanger our troops with some miscalculation or carelessness.”

“No I mean, like, healers,” she said. She waved her hands in a gesture he could only assume was meant to remind him of a healing spell. “I’ve seen lyrium withdrawal. It looks very painful. But magic can knock you out for the worst of it.”

He considered this. Until he’d successfully quit, and knew he would not die of it, his decision to go off lyrium was a secret. A weakness in the Inquisition that no one needed to know they could exploit. And after that, it was hardly necessary. He could handle some headaches and nightmares.

“There was no need,” he said. She huffed.

“Well, if you decide you’d like some help with any lingering symptoms, tell me. I’m not bad at little stuff like that. Wynne taught me,” she said.

Ah, yes. Wynne the abomination.

Perfect.

“You’re right,” she continued, blissfully unaware of the unease that gripped him at the reminder she’d traveled with an abomination for months on end. “Templars need a way out. I’ve had that we-sacrifice-all-for-you crap laid on me more times than I can count. They. . . resent us. Especially as they get older.”

“Mm,” he agreed. She was getting close to checkmate. He might as well let her. He moved a rook, giving her a clear path. Two moves later she had him. “Ah. I believe the game is yours.”

She grinned, and he smiled to see it. When she smiled openly like that she looked a lot more like the young hellion he remembered from the Circle. Less tired, less gray, than the Warden she was now.

“That was a close game. You’re smarter than you look,” she said. Her words hit him like a bucket of icy water. He felt his cheeks and ears burning, and his throat got tight with outrage. Smarter than he looked? 

“Well.” He swallowed, hard, and forced an urbane smile. He couldn’t let that stand. Not for an instant. The warrior in him couldn’t ignore a challenge that blatant. “Would you indulge me with another? I so rarely get to play with anyone besides Dorian.”

“Sure,” she said. And she began resetting the board. “Dorian cheats, you know.”

“I know.” He helped her reset. He let her pick her color again. After all, it hardly mattered. He focused on beating her as swiftly and brutally as possible. He had her in twelve moves. He could do better than that. 

“Now, now, don’t take it easy on me,” he told her. She frowned. “Let’s try that again. Really try this time. You can’t get complacent.”

This time he had her in ten moves.

“Come on, Amell. I said, don’t go easy on me. You can do better than that,” he said. She resorted to cheating. It was the same stunt Dorian liked to pull. He took great satisfaction in beating her despite her unfair advantage.

“You let me win the first time,” she blurted out. He laughed, long and loud, and no one was more surprised to hear that sound come from his mouth than him. When he stopped laughing, he leaned forward, elbows on the table, steepling his fingers in front of her mouth. She watched him with narrow eyes and a twitching smile.

“My lady. I am Commander of the Inquisition. And this is a _game_.” He felt his mouth stretch into a grin. “A very fun game. But these troops don’t wear out their shoeleather or get sick.”

She leaned back. Now it was her turn to go pink in the ears. Her hand fluttered to lie on the pulse point at the base of her pale throat. 

“Do you think you could teach me to be better?” she asked. 

“Of course,” he said, before he thought about it. But really, fun as it was to rub her face in how deeply she’d underestimated him—smarter than he looked? – he wasn’t interested in regular chess lessons. It would be very hard to avoid her if they were sitting out here playing together. “But, ah, why would you want to? You’re a perfectly competent player.”

“Same reason I had Leliana teach me her tumbling and singing, and the same reason I want Dorian to teach me how to beat genlocks over the head with my staff,” she said. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. “The easiest way to pick up a new skill is to have someone show you. And I’ll be damned if I let anyone beat me into the ground the way you just did.”

He respected that. In fact, he respected it too much to go back on his offer to teach her. Damnit. 

“All right.” He glanced up at the position of the sun. “But the afternoon is growing very long. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

_ They were in the Chantry. Kirkwall’s Chantry, with its beautiful windows all blown out and its arching roof open to the sky. Blood stained the walls. Blood, and worse things. The bodies of the fathful, damaged in the blast, lined each aisle. But there was a clear path up the middle. From where he stood, Ivy Amell bound before him, to Meredith. _

_ Meredith gleamed in the light, a statue of red lyrium that called him closer. His bretheren stood by her side, red crystals erupting from their skin. His own skin itched. He began to march Ivy up the aisle. She was crying. And he wanted to stop, but he was really just watching himself move. He couldn’t change anything, couldn’t do anything. _

_ Her hands were bound behind her back with ropes. He could see where the rope had cut into her skin, left it oozing blood. She was calling his name. And then she fell, feet twisted in her long robe. He picked her up, just as he had the morning of her Harrowing, and he carried her to Meredith. He set her down on her feet in front of the red statue. When she swayed, he held her up by her bound hands._

_ “Ivy Amell,” the statue of Meredith said. “You are charged with corruption of a Templar and with helping a blood mage escape. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”_

_ “I did nothing wrong!” Ivy protested. She struggled. He held her in place. He felt her will building, and ruthlessly smote her. She only kept her feet because he held her up. _

_ “On the contrary,” Meredith’s statue said. “Fetch the brand.”_

_ “Knight-Commander,” he heard himself say. His own voice, but he was only hearing it. Just as he was only seeing his own hands holding Ivy still. “When she helped the blood mage escape she broke into the repository of phylacteries. We should search her to make sure she did not remove any others.”_

_ “Good work, Captain,” Meredith said. _

_ He opened Ivy’s robe. She was crying, with as much dignity as she could muster. But she cried harder when he pulled her robe open. He yanked it down, back, exposing her breasts and stomach. Her fair skin was freckled all the way down._

_ “Please don’t,” Ivy whispered, but he didn’t stop there. He stripped her entirely. Her robes draped over her bound hands, another cord by which to hold her. Her pale skin had goosepimples in the remains of the chantry. The sweat on her body gleamed in the moonlight._

_ He kept one hand on the swell of her hips and one on the mound of cloth that covered her bindings. And held her still. She trembled against him. One of the other Templars, red crystals growing out of his face, brought the brand. She struggled, and he wrapped his arm around her naked stomach to keep her still. Her rear pressed against the front of his hips, curving against him. The other Templar drew closer._

_ Just before the brand hit her flesh, she screamed. And the moment she did the red lyrium burst from his chest._

Cullen woke in a cold sweat. His heart was racing, his stomach churning with shame. He gulped in lungfuls of fresh air, and stared at his Spartan room in the moonlight that came through his broken roof. There were no shadows for anything to hide behind. Nothing there for his mind to seize upon so it could play tricks on him. 

It only took a few minutes to get his shaking hands under control. To let his heartbeat slow down. But the shame remained.

What kind of a monster dreamed things like that?

In the dark, alone, Cullen prayed.


	3. Morrigan Returns

Ivy kind of loved Skyhold. It was weird, being around so many people after so much time on her own. The keep operated like a small town, only more crowded. But she found, after she got used to it, that she loved it. It reminded her of the Circle, back when she was a young girl. Except more vibrant, more electric. The question popping out of every mouth was, what kind of future do we want to build?

Everyone seemed to have a different answer. From the green-eyed dwarven Scout Harding to Leliana’s sweet friend Josie, each person seemed to have a different vision. But all of them wanted to break free of the shadows of the past. 

What was better was, she might have gotten her answer.

She was close before. Dorian, Vivienne and Fiona confirmed her suspicions. And the four of them had built on what she had before so quickly she could hardly believe it. When it was just her, out in the wilderness, she doubted that she did her calculations right. The worst thing she could do would be to try to cure the Taint and end up dooming people to something worse. The Taint was, at least, a known evil. 

But now that she’d run it past several other brilliant mages she finally felt like she could trust her answers. As soon as Morrigan got back and had a look at it, she’d know for sure. Morrigan knew things no one else knew. Her arcane knowledge was far-reaching and incredibly obscure. If there was anything she’d looked over, anything she’d gotten wrong, Morrigan would know.

She had to wait in Skyhold five days for her old friend to return.

Fortunately, there was plenty to do. Dorian, when he wasn’t wrapping Inquisitor Lavellan around his finger, was a delightful training partner. He really knew how to whap a demon. The Iron Bull invited her drinking every night – she usually refused. She got to play Wicked Grace with Varric Tethras, one of her favorite authors. And each afternoon Cullen played chess with her. After that first game he was brisk, businesslike, and entirely professional. Seeing him every day was helping her ease past some of her initial trepidation. Leliana was right. He was a much different person. He didn’t even stammer much, while she was around.

And apparently this whole time he was brilliant. She’d gone with Dorian to Cullen’s office one afternoon and seen his bookshelves. It was all tactics and economics, supply lines and military philosophy. Every book was peppered with little dry leaves, apparently in use as bookmarks. So it wasn’t just chess. The man was hiding a real brain behind that stony, muscle-bound exterior. 

As well as a major willpower, to go off lyrium without even a healer’s support. If he had any aptitude for it he would have made a decent mage.

She was out in the garden playing with him when Morrigan arrived. Naturally, being Morrigan, she couldn’t just waltz up and say hello. She took the form of a raven, much like one of Leliana’s ravens, and hopped around on the stones near where Cullen and Ivy played. But Ivy would know Morrigan anywhere, in any form. She gave the raven a bare glance. Made her move. 

“You know, Commander,” Ivy said, making her voice sultry. His eyes snapped up to meet hers, his brows drawing down. “I don’t think I ever properly paid you back for that humiliation at Kinloch Hold.”

That sounded enough like a challenge. Ivy gathered her will, not all in a rush, but trickling a little every second like it did when she was overcome with emotion. Morrigan would know she was gathering her will. She had to hide it somehow. Unfortunately, it sounded enough like a challenge to Cullen, too. And even without the lyrium in his system he could feel what she was doing.

“I- what?” he said. And he started to stand up. Before he could do or say anything else, which would doubtless prove embarrassing for them both, she dispelled Morrigan’s shapeshifting spell.

The black-haired mage unfurled out into her true form, cursing and flailing. Ivy laughed so hard she could barely breathe. Inch by inch, Cullen settled down, and stared at the both of them. 

“Ivy! You did that on purpose!” Morrigan howled. She looked very undignified sprawled out on the cobblestones. “You know how uncomfortable that is!”

“Don’t try to sneak up on me, then!” Ivy gasped in the middle of her laughter. She clutched at her stomach, cheeks aching form smiling so wide. “Sorry, Cullen. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“No . . . no harm done,” he said. He stood, and gave them both a little half bow. “I’ll leave you ladies to it.”

With that, he left. Ivy grinned down at Morrigan, who eventually stopped scowling at her. And that was practically the same as smiling for Morrigan. 

“Where’s Kieran?” Ivy asked. Morrigan stood and dusted off her purple skirts.

“The boy is in the kitchen. At his age, food is always welcome,” Morrigan said. Ivy gestured toward the seat Cullen had vacated. Morrigan took it. But she did not bother the chess board. “Before you ask, he is very well. A far gentler soul than I at the same age. I can only hope. . . I do not ruin him.”

“You won’t ruin him, Morrigan,” Ivy said. She felt a pang of guilt at her trick now. It wasn’t very like Morrigan to say things like that. Ivy had met the young boy four years before, and found him to be a little unsettling but by no means dangerous. He really did seem to be just a child. “You care about the effect your actions have on him. That’s already one up on your mother.”

“Funny you should mention my mother.” Morrigan’s voice was very mild. Her golden eyes flashed. “I happened to run into her recently.”

The bottom dropped out of Ivy’s stomach. She lurched forward, eyes wide. 

“That’s not possible,” Ivy insisted. She had killed Flemeth. Over her own misgivings. The old abomination had saved her life, after all, but she truly couldn’t imagine letting a child-consumer live out their immortal life. Not if she could break that chain. 

“So I thought. You did say you killed her, yes?” Morrigan said. Under the sharpness in her eyes there was hurt. Morrigan was so slow to trust. Ivy knew it would devastate her if she thought Ivy had lied.

“I swear, Morrigan. Your mother turned into a dragon, and we cut her down. It was all Alistair, Sten, Zevran and I could do to kill her. I would not have lied to you about this. I would have simply told you I couldn’t do it,” Ivy insisted. Morrigan closed her eyes, briefly, in relief. Then she continued on as if nothing had happened.

“It is possible. My mother, apparently, is Mythal,” Morrigan said, slowly. Ivy slapped her hand down on the chess board.

“She’s what?”

Morrigan explained all she’d learned about Mythal, the Well of Sorrows, and the eluvians. They were out talking about how to turn into a dragon—which Ivy very much wanted to replicate – when Kieran found them.

He was a serious-looking little boy, who resembled no one and nothing so much as Morrigan herself. He even had her golden eyes. 

“Good evening, Warden,” Kieran said. And it was evening now, she realized. They’d spoken for hours. “Where’s your mabari?”

“Grim Ghram is too old to come adventuring. He’s retired now, in the Warden compound in Denerim.” Her beloved mabari had been put out to stud. Which he clearly loved. And she supported that—it wouldn’t do to have the mabari go the way of the griffons. But she often missed her little slobbery pal. “But how are you, Keiran? I haven’t seen you in four years!”

“I’ve made friends here in Skyhold. Particularly Cole,” Kieran said. 

“Cole is a spirit of Compassion that’s taken the form of a young man. I believe the Inquisitor has been looking after him,” Morrigan said. Fascinating. She would never have thought that a place as rife with Templars as this would harbor a straight up spirit. Even most mages would have an issue with that. And common folk, unused to magic at all? The spirit’s form must truly be convincing, or the people would panic.

“Mother, you need dinner as well,” Kieran said. He had the exact formal tones his mother used. That made Ivy smile. But she reached out to stop her friend.

“I actually wanted to show you this work I’ve been doing on curing the Calling.” She grimaced in apology. “I know it’s late, but—“

“Ivy,” Morrigan interrupted her. “Will you still have the Taint tomorrow?”

“Yes?”

“Then I will look at it tomorrow,” Morrigan said. She stood, and took her son’s hand. “Goodnight. It truly is good to see you.”

“Uh. Goodnight!” Ivy said. Keiran waved her goodbye.

So, she was just left with a half-played chess game and nothing to do. 

Great.

She could join the crowd in the tavern, maybe catch some of her new acquaintances for a game of Wicked Grace. But she was short on coin and apparently entirely unable to hold her drink. So, maybe not that. Leliana would be busy debriefing her agents this time of day, and this was about the time Josephine usually answered letters. After the way she’d yanked him into her little trick it was doubtful Cullen would want to finish their game. 

Maybe she’d just get a book.

The library was lit mostly by lanterns, since the sun was so close to set. And in the latter part of the dinner hour it was all but deserted. The only people there were Hellisima, the tranquil who conducted animal research, and Cullen. 

Maybe him being here was a sign. A sign that if she apologized nicely, he’d still teach her how to be better at chess. 

He saw her coming long before she spoke to him, and gave her a lazy little wave hello. But he didn’t seem exactly happy to see her.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said, by way of greeting. He glanced at her, eyebrows raised. 

“For mentioning Kinloch Hold?” he said. His eyes slid back to the shelves. Oh. Of course. As bad as the memory of that place was for her, it had to be much worse for him. She’d swept through the returning hero, sickened by what she saw but largely unscathed. He was tortured for days. 

“Yes. And—for saying you humiliated me.” That was what she thought the initial apology was supposed to be for. “It was all so long ago, it seems . . . I forget. That it’s not long enough. You know?”

“I do, in fact.” He sighed, and fixed her with a glum look somewhere between frustration and glowering. “I had a lot of the after effects under control. Seeing you again. . . reminds me.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t considered that. That being around her might be unpleasant for him. But it made sense. She might be a hero to a lot of people, but most of the folks she met back when she was doing her heroics were meeting her on the worst day of their lives. It wasn’t her fault, exactly, but it was something she had to be aware of. 

“Not that you—“ Cullen rubbed his face with his hands. “Maker.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry.” She felt like such an ass. “I don’t know if you can trust this, but I promise I have full control of my magic. I am absolutely no threat to you.”

“Maker’s breath, Ivy, I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid for you,” he snapped. He clamped his mouth shut so fast he heard his teeth snap together. She just stared at him. He wasn’t making any sense. 

Cullen sighed, and moved closer to her. He stopped within arm’s reach and leaned his head down, so no one else could hear them. The rookery was just above, the mosaics just below, so she knew he had cause to be afraid he’d be overheard. But this close to him, she could see the gold flecks in his eyes and the glint of stubble on his cheeks. She swallowed, hard. 

“When it was worst, in Kinloch Hold, the demons never showed me illusions of you hurting me,” he said, quietly. His eyes were steady on hers. “They showed me your death. You coming to the rescue, a proud Gray Warden, only to be cut down. Or to be revealed as a desire demon.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. His eyes flicked from her eyes to her mouth and back, and her insides clenched. What would she do if he kissed her? Her heart was pounding. 

“I wanted to be a Templar. With my whole heart, I chose that path,” he said. His voice was hoarse now. Was he leaning in closer? “I would not have shrank from illusions of my own death. That was only expected, from the moment we learned there were abominations in the Tower.”

So, the demons had delved into his thoughts. And found her. 

She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or not. 

“Now that I see you every day, I can’t get those images out of my mind,” he admitted. It was a big truth to trust her with. She nodded, to show she understood. His arms were right there. Within reach. She could put a comforting hand on his forearm, if she wanted. 

But she didn’t.

“It’s probably hard to concentrate on playing chess when you keep seeing my dismembered corpse in your mind,” she said. His smile widened. Good, she was on the right track. “I understand that. If I were to tell you some of the nightmares I’ve had since my Joining, your hair would turn white. To see a familiar face in dreams like that. . . it doesn’t help if you know it’s not real. So I can understand that you’d be uneasy, remembering the illusions.”

“Exactly,” he said, and he stepped back. She mustered her discipline and didn’t follow him. Just because it had been a few years since anyone had shared her bed—or tent, as it were – didn’t mean she could follow a pair of pretty eyes around meeping for attention. Instead, she gave him a reassuring smile.

“If it would be easier for you, we can stop the chess lessons,” she offered. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I only wanted to learn because, well, I’m super competitive. It’s not a priority.”

“No, I—I’d rather remember you as my chess partner,” he said. His eyes were so warm they practically glowed. She had to swallow hard again. “We can keep playing.”

“The game we left behind is unfinished,” Ivy said. She immediately regretted it, because saying it made her sound desperate for company. Besides, he was gently shaking his head.

“It’s better to start fresh. All we’d learn by finishing that game is that I’m still better than you,” he teased. It was the first time he’d ever teased her. She couldn’t help but grin wide and squeeze her arms in her hands to keep herself from doing or saying anything foolish.

“Right. Well—do you have any book recommendations? There’s no one to talk magic with up and about, and I don’t think my stomach or my wallet can take another night in the tavern,” she said. He frowned judiciously.

“I was looking for a history on the Chantry, myself. Something, ah, boring enough to lull me to sleep. Don’t tell Cassandra I said that,” he said. He pulled a book off the shelf. “I don’t know if you’ve read this one, but the political intrigue around the time of the first Inquisition makes for pretty fascinating reading.”

“Oh, no, I’ve read that one,” Ivy assured him. “Is there anything in here on Tevinter?”

“I think Dorian’s absconded with most of it,” Cullen said. But he helped her look through the shelves. They both kept finding things they’d read, and talking about them. She steadfastly refused to read anything by Genitivi “on account of the fact that I know that little guy,” and he kept recommending books on history and philosophy she’d already read. It turned out he was less familiar with folk tales, however, and she gave him several more recommendations than he gave her. They did both ultimately decide, after more than an hour of happily browsing, that it would be rude to the librarians to borrow more than one book at a time. So they spent another hour discussing the pros and cons of each book they wanted to read, particularly its suitability for reading at this exact, very late, moment. 

Eventually, cheeks aching from smiling, books in hand, they went their separate ways. Ivy sent Cullen off with a treatise on the creation of famous magical items, and he sent her off with a book of military history that he promised she’d find interesting. Which would be a first.

It seemed wasteful, extravagant even, to burn candles at night just for reading. But everyone else seemed to be doing it. To Ivy’s amusement, and a little bit of chagrin, she did find the book interesting. It had just the right mix of gore and high drama to keep the historic accounts fun.

She’d have to go to Cullen for more book recommendations.


	4. Nightmares

_ His hands were covered in blood and shards of red lyrium. Maker willing, they wouldn’t bore into his skin. If Varric was right about how contagious this stuff was it was only a matter of time._

_ Maddox leaned against the wall of Samson’s workshop. Beaten, bloody, like he was just before he was made Tranquil. Cullen remembered that day. Remembered the tinge of unease that tugged at his heart when Meredith brought out the brand. And he remembered, especially, how he’d ignored it. And let Maddox lose his soul without a murmur of protest. _

_ All for writing love letters._

_ “He deserves a decent burial,” the Inquisitor said, and Cullen promised he’d look into it. But then they had to find Maddox’s tools, to take to Dagna. To try to break Samson’s armor._

_ And that was when he found it._

_ A wig, it looked like, of bright red hair, draped over the pommel of a sword. Except it wasn’t a wig. It was a scalp. And he knew someone who liked to put her red hair up in that intricate braided knot. _

_ His blood felt like it was on fire, but his stomach was a pit of ice._

_ He found next a hand, delicately boned but full of callouses, with the scrape he’d noticed playing chess yesterday. And then a thigh. Muscled, cut apart at the bones like a haunch of beef. The skin was dusted with freckles._

_ Her staff, plain gnarled wood, leaned against a shelf, on which a cauldron sat. Fear curdling in his guts, he looked in the cauldron._

_ In a pool of blood her face floated. Beautiful, perfect, every freckle in place. Her wide gray eyes seemed to be smiling, to match the curve of her lips. When she opened her mouth the blood rose up, bubbling._

Cullen woke cursing and drenched in sweat. 

As usual.

They were getting worse. 

If only Solas were here, he could ask the elf about his dreams. Solas knew everything worth knowing about the Fade. Maybe Cullen was being plagued by a demon, and if he killed it he’d get a decent night’s rest. Or maybe there was some kind of tea he could drink, or cantrip he could recite, just to stop seeing these things when he closed his eyes. 

What if the nightmares didn’t stop after she left? After she moved on?

He rose from his bed with a groan. It was nearly dawn anyway. 

He washed the cold sweat off and changed into fresh clothes. Then he walked out on the battlements. He often did, first thing in the morning, just to get the fresh air in his lungs and chase the dreams out of his head. Then he warmed up in the courtyard with the early rising recruits and started on drills. 

No army can function properly without daily drills.

He retreated to the stairs above the courtyard to watch when the morning dragged on and the bailey grew too crowded. Of course, that was about the time she showed up.

She seemed fine. Laughing with the Iron Bull, stretching and twirling her staff. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and check her for wounds, after that dream. Run his hands over skin that had never been cut, over a body that was warm and alive and safe. Most of all, safe.

But he didn’t move, because that was ridiculous.

“She was never afraid of you. Only sad that you did not trust her,” Cole said, behind him. Cullen closed his eyes and silently prayed to the Maker for patience. Cole was the last person he wanted to deal with at the moment. His internal thoughts should stay inside his head. It was bad enough he had to think them without airing them out in the common space.

“Good morning, Cole,” Cullen said. Not encouragingly. He glanced at the young man and noticed he was holding flowers. “Who are the flowers for?”

“Marjoline,” Cole said, sighing. Oh, God, he sounded very human when he did that. Cullen glanced from the flowers to Cole’s face and tried not to wonder if spirits could grow up and start wanting to court people. “She loves to get flowers with her breakfast. The best flowers grow behind Cassandra’s practice dummies, if you ever decide to get Ivy flowers.”

Ah, yes. Just what he wanted. Advice on how to make an absolute fool of himself. 

“Thank you,” he said, quellingly.

“The shadows sing to them, and then the song is all they hear,” Cole said. He was watching Ivy move, his hat low over his eyes. Reading her, no doubt. Or at least commenting on her. Cullen decoded that sentence as being about the Warden’s taint. “They become the darkness they fear.”

Maker knew what that meant.

“Ivy’s trying to help the Wardens. You like helping people, don’t you?” Cullen said. Cole glanced up at him, surprised. For a moment he looked like a normal boy. 

“She’s soft inside. Like you. I think she’d like the flowers,” Cole said. Cullen sighed. 

“Thank you for the advice,” he replied. With less vitriol than the first time. Mostly he was just tired. 

“You’ll wish you’d taken my advice when she tells you she’s going to be the one,” Cole said. He shrugged in that lanky, uneasy way he had, and shuffled off. “You’ll wish a lot of things then.”

“Thank you, Cole,” Cullen said, between clenched teeth.

He could not wait to find out what that meant.

It sounded. . . bad. 

Fortunately, there was plenty to do to keep his mind off it. Finishing drills, working out supply lines to their remote fortress-- fewer people wanted to help, now that the Breach was no longer a threat, and it added to their challenges. He knew Josephine in particular was scrambling to find the role of the Inquisition in this new world.

Maybe they didn’t have one. Maybe their days were numbered.

When his headache made reading reports impossible, he took a walk on the battlements. All the way around. Through the new mage tower the Inquisitor decided that Skyhold needed, and around to where the high walls overlooked the courtyard. Dorian was already there, whispering into a crystal. He stopped and smiled when he saw Cullen, and dropped the rock back onto his chest.

“If it isn’t my favorite Commander, come to take the air. What brings you to this remote corner?” Dorian asked. Cullen shrugged, and gestured at the necklace Dorian wore.

“Just walking a bit. What’s that you’re wearing?” he asked. Dorian touched it, half consciously, and smiled brightly. Cullen knew that smile. It was the same one Dorian wore when he was about to cheat at chess.

“Long range communication. Marvelous, isn’t it? I’m testing the enchantment. Still needs a few little tweaks. But it is, of course, brilliant,” Dorian said. Cullen nodded in understanding. It must be difficult, when the Inquisitor left Skyhold and Dorian didn’t join him. Their romance was one of the things the Chantry truly distrusted about the Inquisitor, but neither man cared. Nor should they.

“I’m sure Lavellan will return from the Emerald Graves soon,” Cullen said, answering the things that Dorian did not say aloud. The dark-haired mage nodded in understanding, and thanks. 

Cullen leaned over the ramparts, watching the courtyard below. Just as he suspected, Ivy was there with Morrigan. The two of them seemed to be in a heated debate, but not an angry one. Just two scholars arguing over whose perspective was most right.

“Is it possible?” Cullen asked. Dorian joined him at the rampart. “Can the Joining be reversed?”

“Of course. I believe we could do it today, if we had a Gray Warden handy that no one would mind losing,” Dorian said. Cullen snorted. “It’s always experimental. Always a risk, the first time. Or the fifth time even. What’s worse, I believe you southerners would call it blood magic. No one will be sacrificed, I assure you, but the Taint is carried in the blood. And it has to be removed.”

“Why would. . .” Cullen paused, thinking of how to say it. “Why now? If it were possible, wouldn’t someone have done it before?”

“That’s the rub, isn’t it. I don’t think so. You have to consider what Thedas was like just a few short years ago. The Templars had their Chantry, or vice versa, and were tied to obedience by their dependance on lyrium. And the Chantry’s control of the lyrium trade. Southern mages had their Circles, and their phylacteries. Plenty of control there. Orlesian nobility has the Great Game, still, and you can’t tell me that lethal nonsense doesn’t get incredibly predictable over time.” Dorian gestured at the two women debating magic down below. “The Gray Wardens have a sad lot in life, but the dangers they posed to the common order were understood. Controlled. Historically it was a good place to send political rivals to get them out of your hair. Everyone knew they couldn’t have children or engage meaningfully in politics. Everyone but your friend Ivy, that is, who made a career out of meddling for all she was worth.”

“The woman did pick two kings,” Cullen agreed.

“Indeed. What I’m saying is, people who have power want to keep the power they have, and they want to get more. You always need more. These utterly committed armies of the faithful, like the Templars and the Gray Wardens, they make for excellent tools.” Dorian waved a hand as if to ward off protests. “I know the Gray Wardens themselves are not supposed to be tools used by anyone but. . . they can be. We utilized some ourselves to fight demons in southern Orlais. They’re a fearsome force precisely because there is no turning back. They never retire, never desert. They fight like madmen because they have nothing to lose. You change that? And they’re just like any other army.”

“I find that a regular army is quite sufficient,” Cullen said, dryly. Adamant came to mind, particularly. The legendary martial prowess of the Wardens hadn’t helped them much then. 

“Exactly. You do. The Inquisition does. All of Thedas is being remade in a new image, and the new Thedas is much more concerned about creating good things than keeping forces in reserve to deal with the bad. You’re trying to get Templars to a place where they can go off lyrium safely, Cassandra and her little band of surviving Seekers is reversing Tranquillity. In some special cases. And Ivy wants the Wardens to be able to leave the taint behind. Just think how much better they’ll be when they have their hearts in this world instead of the next.”

“You can be resigned to your death but still have your heart in this world,” Cullen said, without thinking. Maudlin thought. But then, the old days in the Circle were very much on his mind of late. Dorian waved this away.

“Oh, come now, don’t pretend that all this truth and justice folderol gives you breath in the morning. I’m talking about truly caring for the future. Having someone to share it with. Children, if that’s your particular thing,” Dorian said. Cullen looked at him, expecting to see Dorian giving him that look that meant he was teasing, but the other man looked pinched. Tired.

“Are you and Lavellan talking about children?” Cullen asked. It was more than possible to take in a small child, if they wanted. Or five or six. The recent war left too many orphans to count. If he were more of a domestic man, or if he’d been married, he would surely have taken several in himself. But Dorian laughed.

“Sweet Maker, no. Can you imagine me with spit-up on my well tailored clothes? Unreasonable.” He shifted, his stance wider, and smiled more like the smug, carefree man he generally was. Tuning that communication stone must have truly put Dorian in a mood, but it was good to see it was lifting. “But I can quite picture you with tiny creatures clutching at your pant legs. It would be just like having your own little army of raw recruits to whip into shape.”

“Perhaps. Someday,” Cullen said. His eyes found Ivy in the courtyard. She was gesticulating wildly, and nearly knocking herself off the bench. He hadn’t ever really found someone he wanted to share his life with. Which, to be fair, wasn’t something that was even possible until recently. Until he’d gotten well clear of the lyrium withdrawals he was far too damaged.

Maybe he still was. Could he picture himself taking a woman to bed if all he was going to do was thrash and curse and recite cantrips after his nightmares woke him? He couldn’t even bring himself to patch the roof. The fresh air and moonlight helped in a way nothing else could. 

Any woman he’d be interested in would be able to do better for herself than a cranky old general who had to sleep in a room without a proper roof and who woke her with his shaking and cursing. 

“That reminds me, actually, of a question I had,” Dorian said. His gaze followed Cullen’s down to where Ivy was sitting. “I understand you and the Warden knew each other back in the Circle. What was she like, before she became the unstoppable juggernaught all of Fereldan loves to praise?”

Cullen hadn’t expected that question. He was braced for someone, anyone, to ask about their previous relationship. And that one was easy to answer. They didn’t have one. They were just acquaintances. His schoolboy infatuation was not anyone’s business and it couldn’t possibly have impacted her life all that much. But this, he had to think about. He watched the sunlight gleam off the beads she wore in her hair. She’d been in his nightmares too long. It was strange to see her in the light-- but a good kind of strange.

“She was kind,” he said, eventually. “To everyone. Even me, and I was a tongue-tied young fool. She liked to study long after everyone else had stopped and gone to their dormitories. I think she practically lived in the library. And, of course, she was a fantastic mage. Even then. I was at her Harrowing, and I’ve never seen one faster or cleaner.”

“So, no surprises there. It’s always a shock, isn’t it, when a famous person ends up being better than their stories,” Dorian said. He sighed. “Unfortunately, none of the more salacious stories are true. I asked. I only tell you because I know for a fact that you’ve heard them, and that you will never indulge your natural curiosity.”

Dorian was right on both counts. Rumors about the Hero of Fereldan abounded. And they ranged from the relatively tame-- that she had a secret marriage to Nathaniel Howe, or to the King himself -- to the extremely physically improbable. He wasn’t exactly sure how many people could fit in a bed at once but he was certain the answer wasn’t three humans, an elf, a qunari, and a stone golem.

“You’re right that I wouldn’t ask,” Cullen said, primly. Dorian flashed him a grin. 

Below, in the courtyard, she burst out laughing at something Morrigan said. But Morrigan didn’t join her- in fact, she looked quite cross. He could admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that he was still drawn to Ivy. Whether it was because of the terror of his nightmares or simply because she was a beautiful woman, he found his heart eased when he saw she was happy. His eyes kept finding her in a crowd. And it didn’t matter, really, if the reassurance he felt was because his nightmares were clearly not true or because it was simply nice to see. Until she left Skyhold it seemed a small enough indulgence to permit himself. There couldn’t be any harm in looking at her. 

Morrigan rolled her eyes heavenward, and in so doing she glimpsed him and Dorian standing on the battlements. Dorian responded to her glower with a cheery wave. Ivy, still grinning, followed Morrigan’s gaze upward and saw the pair of them looking down at her.

His knuckles were white, gripping the stone.

She returned Dorian’s wave. Cullen couldn’t quite bring himself to wave back. What on Earth was wrong with him? It wasn’t as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. He was just standing here. A place he had every right to be.

“Oh dear,” Dorian said. Cullen glanced at him and found the mage watching him with narrowed eyes. But then Dorian smiled, and strode off toward the stairs with a waggle of his fingers. Cullen didn’t even have time to ask him what he meant. But he knew whatever it was, he wasn’t going to like it.

Scowling, Cullen returned to his office. He had work to do, and no time for this foolishness. The next time he saw Dorian hanging around on the battlements he’d just nod.


	5. And Cole?

The time was coming. Ivy was winning them over to her plan. Slowly but surely. No one liked the idea of her being the one to first test the ritual they’d dreamed up, but she was insistent. She told them it was because she, as a truly gifted mage, stood a better chance of noting any problems in the ritual as it was ongoing. She told them it was because she’d slain an Archdemon and she was unkillable. No one really bought that one. But her real reason hadn’t won her any points with the mages of Skyhold.  
She wasn’t going to order one of her people to be the first to try something she was unsure about. If she didn’t trust the magic enough to try it herself, she wasn’t going to let someone else go first. That was where Warden Commander Clarel went wrong. She could learn from the other woman’s mistakes and make better choices. Or, at a minimum, new and different mistakes.   
They’d talked her into wating until Inquisitor Lavellan returned from the Emerald Graves. Leliana wanted to send for Alistair, but Ivy talked her out of it. The big lummox would insist on taking this risk himself, crown and line of succession be damned. He was her best friend and she knew he saw this the exact same way she did-- except he figured he outranked her. Since he was King. And the highest-ranked person gets to make the call, that was one of his personal mottos.   
No, if it worked, if she got rid of the Taint and survived, they could send for him. Get him married off to that Cousland heiress he’d lost his head over. All of his letters were about how wonderful Elena Cousland was. Ivy had never met her, but if she wasn’t an inhumanly perfect angel with hair made out of literal gold who ate lightning and crapped thunder it would be a huge letdown. Reading his accounts of their interactions-- taking it all with a grain of salt -- it seemed Elena felt the same way about him. No one would sit through his four hour puppet shows if they weren’t in love with him.   
Fiona had suggested she wait to perform the ritual until the Inquisitor returned. Lavellan was, after all, an accomplished mage in his own right. And as a Dalish he knew things the rest of them would not be exposed to. She was willing to wait. He was supposed to return in a day or two. It wasn’t that long.  
Besides, she had plenty to keep her busy. She was just about getting the hang of Dorian’s staff wielding methods. To make it work, she needed a heavier staff. But Skyhold was full of the things.  
Ivy woke just before dawn and pulled on her leathers. As was her routine, for the past several days, she met Dorian in the dining hall. Usually they’d eat a leisurely breakfast, drinking tea and munching on toast until they wandered out into the bailey with the rest of the people training. But this morning, by the time she got there he had two big mugs of tea and a basket of bread already.  
“Good morning, my dear,” he greeted her. He picked up the tea and handed it to her, then grabbed the basket. “We’re going to have a little picnic this morning. I want to treat you to the best show in Thedas.”  
“Please don’t tell me we’re going to peek into the barrack showers or anything,” she said. He gave her a wounded look, hand over his heart.   
“What a thing to suggest,” he said. But he didn’t tell her what they were going to see. Well, maybe it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like the dining hall was all that entertaining.   
The morning air was crisp and cool, even in this warm season. The barest blue light washed over the sky, illuminating the ground below in washed out tones. Dorian led her up the stairs, around the ramparts, and out over the place where they usually trained. To her surprise, she saw two dozen warriors out in the yard already.  
“Here, give me that tea,” Dorian whispered. He traded her a mug for a roll from his basket. “The most serious warriors in Skyhold join our Commander in his early conditioning. You have to do a lot of press ups to be able to wield one of those greatswords without tiring. Unless you’re Bull.”  
“So we’re here to watch people exercise?” Ivy whispered back. Dorian gave her a little flourishing bow. Obviously that was a yes.   
She’d done weirder things.   
Feeling a little bit like some over-hormonal teenager sneaking out to watch the Templars chop wood, she gave in and watched. The whole lot of them were moving as one unit. Clearly, this was all a routine they were more than used to. They squatted low, jumped high, dropped to the ground only to press themselves up, and then did it all over again. She’d never made her Wardens do anything like this. Maybe it was being a mage, but she sort of took all the big muscles on the fighters for granted. She hadn’t considered that keeping them up might be a lot of work.  
Wait.  
Was that Cullen?  
Several of the men were shirtless, and more than one woman wore just a breast band. One of the shirtless men had a familiar shock of curling blonde hair. Or was it brown? It was hard to tell in this early morning light.   
“I see you’ve spotted the Commander,” Dorian said. He took a sip of his tea. So it was Cullen. “Isn’t it remarkable how he’s almost as imposing out of his armor as he is in it?”  
The half naked man in the courtyard was certainly broad shouldered, with thick arms and, she was almost embarrassed to notice, thick legs and an extremely . . . shapely rear end.   
The gossips in Val Royeau weren’t wrong.  
“Imposing? No.” That wasn’t the word she’d use to describe it. But if she told Dorian what she was thinking she’d never hear the end of it. She wrenched her eyes away from Cullen and swept them out over the field of soldiers. There were plenty of comely forms down there. Lots of people with extremely shapely rear ends.   
Maybe she and Dorian would make this picnic their new routine.   
“You know, he mentioned the two of you knew each other in the Circle. Kind, is how he described you,” Dorian said. He hadn’t touched a single bite of bread. He seemed content to sip that tea after every sentence.   
She couldn’t remember the last time someone described her as kind.  
“I rather got the impression he was a bit of a mess back in the day. I can just picture it. Gangly, awkward. A slave to the ravages of puberty.” Dorian shuddered delicately. “Has he grown up as much as I think he has?”  
She thought about the hours they’d spent in the library, and smiled. “Absolutely. He used to be much more serious. Or he took himself more seriously.”  
“That hardly seems possible,” Dorian objected. Below, in the courtyard, the soldiers appeared to be running through hand to hand drills. Which didn’t make a lot of sense, because wouldn’t they have weapons if they were in some kind of fight? But maybe weapons could be knocked away. They were all faster than she would have expected them to be. Dodging, ducking. She saw Cullen take a blow to his chest, hard enough to knock him back half a step. He stopped the man who’d hit him. Was he hurt?  
He went around to the man’s side and showed him something, something to do with hips. After that he squared up across from him again and tapped his sternum. His voice rose over the din in the crisp cool air.  
“Just below the breastbone, Caldwell,” Cullen said. The man hit him exactly where he’d tapped. He doubled over, briefly, and then jabbed out at Caldwell’s hip. Caldwell, clearly taken by surprise, was twisted around and lost his balance. “And keep your guard up!”  
“See, that’s about as much fun as I’ve ever seen the man have,” Dorian said. He clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Getting punched. Since you’re old friends, maybe you could help him on his road to lightening up. I’ve got a fantastic book of erotic poetry you could read to him.”  
Ivy snorted. She could just imagine Cullen’s response to that. He wouldn’t lighten up, he’d light on fire. And then she’d be out a chess partner, and every day in Skyhold would be awkward.   
“Or a deck of cards. Andraste’s ass, even just taking the man a cupcake would brighten his dismal existence,” Dorian said. The man in question was stalking over to the wall, along with the rest of the soldiers. They gathered breastplates and weapons. Cullen threw on a dark linen shirt and tied his breastplate on with the ease of long practice. She knew how heavy those things were. Obviously the conditioning was working.   
Maybe it could be fun. Pop around to his office, talk about books they’d read. And then. . . and then what? So what if she looked forward to their chess games? And so what if she’d noticed how nice his eyes were, and maybe possibly thought about what his hair would feel like if she ran her fingers through it? He’d shown no signs of interest in her whatsoever. He probably saw her and thought about the worst days in his life.   
“I don’t think he’ll want to see me any more than he already does,” she said. Her tea was getting cold. She finished it off in one gulp. The men and women below had their armor back on, including Cullen, and they were facing off with weapons instead of fists. How could they just go from one thing to the other like that?  
The sun broke over the walls of the fort, and lit the bailey below more clearly. New people, armed and armored, joined those already training in the yard. The sunlight glinted off Cullen’s hair and armor like he was some kind of fairy tale prince, like from the stories she read as a little girl.   
Doubtless those fairy tales were the reason she had such a weakness for a man in armor.   
“My dear, I’m afraid you’re quite wrong on that count. Trust me,” Dorian said. He winked outrageously. She could only smile and shake her head. Maybe Dorian was right. Maybe not. Either way, she had more important things to do at the moment.  
“It’s light enough to start our own practice,” she said. She finished her roll.   
“All right, all right. Change the subject. Just think about it, all right?” Dorian said.   
As if she could avoid thinking about it, now that he’d brought it up. 

Her daily chess game with the Commander was canceled on account of the Inquisitor’s return. Everything in Skyhold came to a screeching halt for several hours. After her formal introduction to Inquisitor Lavellan, she found herself at odds. Leliana, Josie, and Cullen were holed up in the War Room. Morrigan was preparing a report for the lot of them on her most recent trip to the Winter Palace. Dorian was off wherever the Inquisitor was, no doubt, while all this preparation and organization was going on. So Ivy found herself in the armory, looking at the staffs. She really needed a heavier staff if she was going to use it as a stave.   
The problem was, she needed to keep a light staff if she was going to carry it on her back all day every day. Forget building muscle, carrying a stick of that length over mountains and through streams was just awkward. There were reasons besides sentiment that she’d kept the old oak’s branch. She was used to it.   
Maybe she could talk Dagna into making her a staff modeled off the Blade of Tildarion. A back up weapon, something light, that she could keep with her. Of course, she couldn’t use any of Dorian’s moves. But there was surely someone in Skyhold that could show her how. She liked the idea of having something for close combat, now that the idea was in her head. Something she wouldn’t have to drop to cast a spell. The Deep Roads were often close quarters.  
“Hello.”   
She turned around. The armory was empty except for herself and a young man wearing torn clothes and a broad, round hat.   
There was something. . . wrong about him.  
“Varric tells me that I have to say hello, now that everyone can see me,” the young man said. Ivy studied him carefully. He looked normal, he did but he. . . felt wrong. Magically. Not like a mage. And not like a demon.  
“You can ask anyone,” the young man continued. Ivy gripped the staff in her hand, uneasy. “I was a spirit, but I changed. I’m a person, now, but I haven’t got it all right yet. I’m sorry I scared you.”  
With that, he shuffled away. Ivy blew out her breath slowly. She kept a grip on the staff, and slowly walked out of the armory. The hall was empty, too. Holding her weapon in her hand, she jogged back to the main hall.   
Varric was sitting near the door, as usual. Doing some kind of paperwork. The weird kid mentioned him. So he was where she’d start.  
“Varric!” she snapped. Heads jerked up all through the hall. Including his. When he saw it was her, he relaxed slightly.   
“Warden! Hey there. Thought you were the Seeker, for a moment.” He leaned back, massive arm folded comfortably over the back of his chair. “What’s up?”  
“I just met. . . someone. He mentioned you. Skinny guy, big hat? Creepy as hell?” Ivy said. The confusion on Varric’s face cleared.  
“Oh, that’ll be Cole. He may seem a little odd but he’s good. Really. Did he say anything to you?” Varric asked. Ivy rolled her shoulders back, willing the tension out of them. She leaned the staff against the nearest wall. It would be uncivilized, to say the least, to stand among all these random people brandishing a weapon.   
“He said he was a spirit, but now he’s changed,” Ivy said. Varric laughed. At least it was funny to someone.  
“Yeah, a spirit of Compassion. Apparently. That kind of thing isn’t really my strong suit. Short version is, he showed up at Haven just when it was under attack, and he helped us out. He’s hung around since then. We used to have a guy, an apostate, who really got the finer points on all this but he wandered off after we beat Corypheus,” Varric said. “But is that all he said? Usually you get more from the kid.”  
“I apologized for scaring her.” The voice that spoke came from the shadows of the doorway. Ivy nearly cast an icy blast at him, but stopped herself just in time. Allies, she reminded herself. They were allies.   
“Yeah, kid, you’re not really making up for that now. You know people don’t like it when you do that cloaking thing inside Skyhold,” Varric said. his tone implied this was a conversation they’d had many times. Cloaking. Just. . . something assassins did. A perfectly normal thing. The fact that even Zevran couldn’t have hidden so completely in those shadows didn’t make it less. . . oh, who was she kidding. This was weird. Even for her.  
“Cullen said she was trying to help people. So I want to help her,” the kid, Cole, said. Varric winked at her as if this was supposed to be reassuring.   
“Help her with anything in particular?” Varric prompted. As though he knew that his friend would stand silently without some kind of conversational direction.  
“Yes. I wanted to tell you, you don’t have to be afraid. You can rely on the people here for help.” The young man did not look at her. His eyes were entirely hidden by the broad brim of his hat. “They won’t let you down. And they don’t mind. You don’t have to count the candles and the meals, they’re given freely.”  
“Now that’s words of wisdom, right there,” Varric applauded him. Ivy felt warm, deep in her chest. And in her cheeks.   
“I don’t. . . count the candles I use,” she lied. It was difficult to not feel beholden to the people of Skyhold. They gave resources so freely, but she knew how scarce and precious they really were.   
“You do. But you don’t have to,” the young man, or spirit, or whatever he really was said. She didn’t argue with him again. “And there’s something else. This won’t help you, but. . . he said you were here to help people.”  
Right. Cullen said that about her. Because apparently the man who’d ranted and raved at her about mages being too dangerous to live was sufficiently past that to talk to spirits.   
She nodded.   
“His nightmares are getting worse. You can help, but he won’t ask. You’ll have to insist,” Cole said.   
“Whose nightmares?” she said. Cole tilted his head so his eyes showed around his hat.  
“He tried to tell you in the library but he couldn’t,” Cole said.  
Cullen. Cullen was having nightmares? About Kinloch hold, no doubt. Because now she was here.   
Great.  
“When you go see him, take some of the fizzy cider. It’s his favorite,” Cole said.   
Right.  
“Does that make sense to you, Warden?” Varric asked. His whole body was relaxed, but his eyes were sharp.   
“Yeah,” she said, but she didn’t elaborate.  
It wasn’t her fault that her presence had a bad effect on someone. Not at all. And Maker knew she was here to do important work.  
But there was so much time spent waiting for other people to be ready. Surely she might have time to help Cullen with his nightmares. Maybe tonight. 


	6. You'll Wish You Gave Her Flowers

The rain that had been threatening all afternoon broke just after sunset. When rain came in the Frostbacks, it stayed for days at a time. Heavy sheets of rain fell against his office windows. Cullen stayed at his desk, not pacing for fear of getting some of the deluge dripping down the broken parts of his ceiling. His bed would be dry. Dry-ish. But the biggest hole in his roof was right over the ladder that led up to his loft. 

It hardly mattered. He had a steady fire and a stack of new reports from the Emerald Graves. He had plenty to occupy himself until he was tired enough to finally sleep.

One of his doors banged open and a hunched figure in a hooded red cloak came in. She -- short enough, with enough curves visible he was certain -- kicked the door closed behind her. He was on his feet, alert, even though he had no memory of moving.

“Sweet Andraste’s swollen feet, that’s a storm.” She pulled her hood back. Ivy grinned at him, red hair wet only in the very front of her face. He realized his mouth was open and shut it with a snap. She carried something with her, under her cloak. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Which was a lot more brusque than he intended. But she seemed unphased. 

“I brought the chess board from the garden. And a bottle of fizzy cider, if you’re up for playing,” she said. He blinked at her. But he didn’t have time to process that before she saw the streams of water falling down near the ladder. “What the hell happened to your roof? Shouldn’t you have people to patch that kind of thing?”

“No, I, well, yes. We do. I just don’t.” God, he sounded as idiotic as he did back when he was a feckless nineteen year old. No wonder she didn’t think he was that bright. “Several people have made the offer to patch it. I like it as it is.”

“You like a small river pouring into your office?” She came close to his desk. She smelled like rain, and the cinnamon bread they made in the kitchens, and up close she was brilliantly, startlingly real. He found it hard to talk past the inexplicable lump in his throat. 

“I like the fresh air,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse, for some reason. He cleared his throat. Why did she just keep looking at him with those big gray eyes? Like she could see into his soul? “And the light.”

“Oh, that’s easy. I have something for that. I don’t know if it would work on your roof, though. I’m willing to give it a try,” she said. Her smile was open, easy, cheerful. She did not seem to have any comprehension of the tightly controlled world she was barging into. 

“What do you suggest?” he sounded so normal. Like he was a reasonable man having a reasonable conversation with an old acquaintance, instead of like he was crashing around screaming inside his head.

“I use this kind of tent spell? If it would be possible to cast it a few feet up from your roof I bet it would keep the rain out but let the air and light in,” she said. Her smile was infectious. He felt it tugging at his own lips. Ruthlessly, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, erasing it. 

“If you think it could work,” he allowed. Normally he didn’t let anyone mess with his space. But it would be nice to not have rainwater dripping down in that corner for the next several days. She dumped the things she was carrying on his desk, in the precious clear space, and scampered up the ladder without another word.

That was his _bedroom _up there. 

He followed her. Water splashed down on him, on his head, on his chest. And damnit, he’d have to take this armor off and polish it. He couldn’t have it rusting. She didn’t even pause when she got to the top, she just pirouetted around and started examining his roof. 

Cullen stood by the edge of the loft, just above the ladder, and watched her. Rain dripped down right on his head, but he was already wet. She was soaking, too. In her excitement she’d forgotten to pull her hood up. But she ignored the wet just as he did. Leaning back, so far he was amazed she kept her balance, she spun her hands in the air and then threw them up at the ceiling.

Nothing changed. The broken beams were just where they always were. The faint light from the stormy sky still showed through. But the rain stopped dripping on his head. 

Actually, the rain stopped dripping everywhere. 

“Did you . . .?” he asked. She straightened, grinning irrepressibly. Her hair plastered to her head, cloak clinging to her arms -- she had paid no attention to the water on her way up the ladder.

“That’s the stuff! It’s sort of a pyramid shape. A magic tent. You said you like the fresh air, so I cast it a couple feet above your roof. It should still keep out most of the rain,” she said. She seemed very pleased with herself. It was infectious-- he found himself smiling back at her, something giddy bubbling in his chest.

“How long will it last?” he asked. She made a face.

“No idea! I pretty much put them up for a night and just move on, leaving a little dry patch where I’ve been. But when it breaks down just tell me. It’s no real trouble to do it again.” She hooked her hands on her hips and glanced around. He was reminded of why he’d followed her up here. 

It wasn’t like he had secrets on display. He was a habitually neat man-- laundry put away, bed made with military precision. He had few belongings. But he still felt odd knowing she was seeing his private space.

“You, ah, forgot to put your hood up,” he pointed out. She grabbed at the wet ends of her hair, her smile turning rueful.

“I’m not very careful. It’s frustrating for many of my travel companions. Leliana used to fuss like a mother hen,” she admitted. He crossed the floor to one of his trunks. He pulled out a towel and a clean shirt. After a moment, he got a towel and a spare shirt for himself. 

“I got a bit caught up in the moment myself. Here.” He handed over the things he’d pulled out for her. She took them daintily, with just the tips of her fingers. “We’ll hang your wet things by the fire to dry. If you want. If you were. . . planning on staying a moment.”

“I brought the chess set,” she reminded him. It was good that it was dark up here because he could feel the rising blush creeping up his neck. She was in his bedroom. She brought the chess set. Because she wanted to spend time with him.

“Right. Um, yes.” Damnit. He was tripping over his words again. He gave her a little half salute and went to the stairs. Retreated, really. “You can change up here. I need to get this armor dried off as soon as possible.”

“Don’t you fight in the rain?” she asked. Her teeth flashed in the dim light. She was teasing him? 

“Of course. And then afterward, you have to dry your armor off as soon as you can,” he said. He fled back down the ladder to his office.

He busied himself getting his cloak and armor off. He changed his wet shirt before he began working on the armor. If she came back down before he had the dry one on, he’d be too embarrassed to change in front of her. 

A wet thwap drew his attention back to the ladder. A pile of wet clothes, including her red cloak, lay at the bottom. She must have thrown them down. She quickly followed herself, scampering down the rungs much quicker than he usually did.

Like him, she’d changed into one of his dry shirts.

Unlike him, she hadn’t kept her pants on.

His mouth dry, he watched the light flash off her bare legs as she moved. What could have possessed her to do such a thing? 

She hit the bottom and gathered up her clothes with carefree cheer. As though she weren’t half naked. 

Her legs weren’t nearly as freckled as her arms. 

“Where can I hang these?” she said, holding up the pile of wet clothes. He took them from her wordlessly, not trusting himself to speak without sounding like a fool. She didn’t seem to mind. She came to stand next to him near the fire, and began unbraiding her hair. He busied himself with hanging up her clothes where they could dry-- quickly. 

Her hair was much longer than it looked when she had it up.

It lay wet across her shoulders and halfway down her back, like streams of bloodstone. His shirt was much too big for her-- it hit her almost at her knees, and billowed around her. He hadn’t realized how much smaller she was. Her presence filled whatever room she entered, and it must make her seem taller than she truly was. 

She started to dry her hair with the towel. He realized he was staring, and made himself stop. 

He should set up the chess board. Something to do with his hands.

What in the Maker’s name was wrong with him? It was like he was a callow youth again, all hands and tripping tongue. The way he was carrying on you’d think he had never been alone in a room with a woman before. 

He set the board up on one of his chests, one that held old reports too outdated to be immediately useful but too important to simply burn. He had two low stools, the best he could do, pulled up on either side by the time she was done with her hair. It was still damp, darker than its usual blood red, but probably less wet than before. He assumed.

With the fire behind her, he could see the outline of her body under that shirt. 

His palms were sweating.

it wasn’t that he’d never seen a woman naked before. He’d had a few bed-friends in Kirkwall, before he became Knight-Captain and his life disapeared into duty. Nothing serious. But he certainly wasn’t inexperienced enough to justify the way his heart raced at the sight of her.

“Do you often loan people your clothes?” she asked. She wasn’t looking at him, so she missed the confusion on his face. 

“Not at all.”

“Why do I rate such courtesy, then?” she asked. She didn’t sound suspicious, or mean, merely curious. 

“Leliana will kill me if you catch cold,” he said. But the truth was, he had no idea. He’d just done it. 

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I used to travel with a healer that taught me how to deal with little things like colds. I can fix up a six-inch gash, a little head cold is nothing,” she assured him. He ran his hand through his hair. It was slick with water, but it would dry unruly and curly. Wynne was a healer, wasn’t she?

And, accoridng to Leliana, an abomination.

“Leliana mentioned that you traveled with Wynne, from the Circle,” he said. She just looked at him, brightly. “And that-- that she was actually an abomination.”

“Oh.” Some of the light left her features. She chewed on her bottom lip. Which was clearly a sign of nervousness but also very distracting. “Are you still an abomination if you are in control of yourself? If you’re all yourself, but just something else besides?”

“Yes,” he answered. Theological debates aside, that one was simple. “And you can’t pretend that control always lasts. I understand from Varric that Anders was a gentle person. He ran a clinic, he fed stray cats-- and he murdered dozens of innocent people.”

“Oh. Anders.” Now her face fell, entirely. “I wouldn’t have called him gentle. Funny, though. And helpful. It was actually him that taught me how to cope with a cold.”

That was right. In Amaranthine, she’d invoked the right of conscription and made Anders a Gray Warden. It was her doing that he was a free man when he came to Kirkwall.

“It’s troubling,” he said. He picked up a chess piece and toyed with it but did not begin to play. “I hate to think that abominations could be anywhere. Everywhere. It seems half the mages I hear about had some sort of ostensibly benevolent spirit inside them. I wonder how many I walk past, unknowing.”

“I imagine that would be difficult for you. Given your past.” Her voice was cooler than it had been just a moment ago. The good cheer was entirely gone from her face. Tension sang in the lines of her body. Was she afriad? She looked almost afraid.

There wasn’t anything in this room to be afraid of except for him.

“It’s all right,” he said, gently. He wasn’t sure why her whole demeanor changed. “Past or no past. I don’t think less of you for having known Anders. I, too, worked closely with someone who turned out to be monstrous. I’m sure you heard tales of Knight-Commander Meredith.”

“Oh yes. But- you. You once told me that you had been chosen to cut me down at my Harrowing. If I failed.” Her eyes were steady on his. But her voice was cold. This, then, was the deeper fear behind her sudden shift. “What about now? If I were an abomination, if some spirit had taken up residence inside me, would you cut me down? For the safety of everyone else.”

“No,” he said. That was simple, too. She blinked at him, but did not otherwise move. Maybe he needed to be more clear. “Perhaps if you turned inside out and became a ravaging beast, like the abominations in the Tower. But there’s no cure for that, no going back. It wouldn’t be you anymore. If you told me, right now, that you’re inhabited by a spirit I wouldn’t harm you.”

“Why not?” she said. He supposed she had reason to be suspicious. She had, after all, seen him at his absolute worst.

“Because you saved Connor in Redcliff,” he said. Now he’d properly surprised her. She sat back, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. He pressed on. “And because Anders wrote us letters for years, before the Chantry, and I ignored them. We all did. I had the opportunity to talk to Hawke last year, he was here briefly. And I heard tales of abuses I never saw. I never even asked about them. Magic is absolutely dangerous. And, sometimes, people have to be killed to prevent them from killing others. That applies to everyone, not just mages. But. . . the world is not simple. And I have enough blood on my hands without adding yours.”

“Oh.” She watched him, wordlessly, for a moment. He was quite content to let her. There was a buzzing in his chest and a lightness in his limbs that he hadn’t felt in twelve years. When he was nineteen he called it love. Now that he was older he wasn’t sure he knew what to call it. 

“You’re safe with me, Ivy,” he said. He forced a smile, and hoped it looked easy. Not strained and pressed. “And not just because you can probably turn me into an icicle faster than I can blink.”

She chuckled, some of the tension easing out of her. The look she gave him now wasn’t fear at all, but something warm and speculative. Something else he didn’t quite know what to call.

“You’ve really changed. I’m glad. Or, you’re more like you were when I first knew you. Before things went wrong. I’m not sure which. But it’s good to see,” she said. Was she blathering? Was she nervous? Was it possible, even conceivable, that she might be nervous for the same reason he was?

Probably not.

“We should—we should play.” He held up his chess piece to illuminate what kind of play he meant. “Since you brought the board.”

It was easy, playing chess with her. Easy to fall into a light pattern of meaningless chatter, easy to let himself watch her while she chose her next move. Her hair was frizzy, a faint red halo around her head glinting in the firelight. It seemed impossible that she would be here. After all these years, all the time and distance and with everything that had happened to him since the last time he saw her, how could she be sitting here across from him playing chess?

It was like being drunk, he decided, slowly sipping the cider she’d brought. A little like being drunk and a little like blood loss. He felt light, surreal. And his heart would not stop racing.

“I passed through Orlais on my way here and saw some old friends,” she said, sliding a bishop across the board to seize one of his knights. “They told me that you broke more than a few hearts in Halamshiral. Something about a uniform that was too tight? And a steadfast refusal to dance with anyone?”

“Maker’s breath,” he huffed. “You’d think the attempted coup would be more prevalent in their memories.”

“Oh, Cullen, you know a good coup is the lifeblood of Orlais,” she said. Now she was laughing at him. He could tell by the way her eyes glinted with mischief. He couldn’t bring himself to be irritated, though he did feel his cheeks getting hot. “But a dashing commander who refuses all attention? That’s not something you see every day.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Josephine had my suit tailored too tightly on purpose. For her, that wouldn’t even be a particularly arcane move in the Game,” Cullen complained. He fought the urge to cross his arms over his chest, defensively. This was less embarrassing than his defeat at Wicked Grace, but not by much. “And I’m hardly the sort of turned-out heir those folk should be fawning over. I’ve no idea why this fancy took any of them at all.”

“You may be underestimating your personal attractiveness,” she pointed out.

His heart stuttered.

She kept on, talking about Orlais this and the Game that, her hands weaving while she talked as if she were casting a spell and she must be, truly, because she was somehow oblivious to the fact that he was _dying_.

It took him a few moments to remember to breathe.

“And anyway, why didn’t you just dance with some of them? That’s how you shake that kind of thing,” she said. Her full, pink lips were quirked in a smart-ass little smile. He wanted very badly to kiss the smirk off those lips.

This, this exact madness was why he hadn’t wanted to be alone with her. He remembered now. Too late.

“I don’t know how to dance,” he said, lamely. She seemed to require some sort of response. For some reason, his answer amused her. At least he was making her smile. In a manner of speaking.

He made a move on the board. He didn’t even think it through, just shoved a piece. She took one of his rooks without even pausing to think about it. He should have seen that coming.

“I’m sorry if this is an embarrassing topic. I didn’t mean to push,” she said. He let his breath out on a long sigh. She probably really hadn’t meant to push at all. It wasn’t her fault that he was crashing and burning and screaming inside his head.

She let him make his next move in silence. He tried to get his head back in the game.

“I guess I’m just curious. And I was leading up to it, but, I did a terrible job of asking what I really want to know,” she said. He braced himself, hands on his knees, for whatever she was going to say next. “The rumor is that you keep turning people down because you have a secret paramour. Do you?”

Yes. That was exactly as invasive and ridiculous as he had expected.

“Of course not.” Was that really what people thought? As if he’d ever keep such a thing secret. How could he? The barracks gossips probably knew what he had for breakfast each morning. By noon tomorrow this little chess game would be public knowledge. With embellishments. “I keep turning down marriage proposals from strangers because they’re _strangers_.”

“Quite sensible of you,” she said, with a grin. “I, myself, have always refused marriage offers from strangers. And friends. It’s quite liberating.”

He had no idea what to say to that.

It was too late to salvage the game. She really was a competent player, and he’d made several bad mistakes while she was asking her questions. Her hand hovered over the piece she’d have to move to beat him, her face lit in anticipation.

“You weren’t going easy on me?” she asked. He straightened, smiling, and shook his head.

“Not at all. The game is yours. Well done,” he said. She slammed her piece down triumphantly, and then stood, hopping around in a little circle and pumping her fists in the air.

“I! Beat! Cullen! Rutherford!” she crowed, punctuating each word with a hop and a punch. She looked like an overexcited rabbit, and he couldn’t stop himself from laughing at her. She didn’t seem to mind. She stopped her victory dance right in front of him, face flushed, grin bright, and held out her hand.

“Shake the hand of the woman who’s beaten you,” she commanded. He laughed harder, but he shook it. Her hands were soft, and warm, and only the laughter shaking his belly kept him from doing something foolish. Like kissing the back of her hand. Or pulling her into his lap.

“If I’d known you’d be such a poor winner I might not have taught you any of my moves,” he said. She made a face at him, taunting, and skipped away.

“You must have forgotten, Cullen, that I am always going to rise to the top in anything I attempt,” she said. Ah, yes. There was that old pride. It reminded him of the moment in the Tower when she’d said that she did not fear abominations- abominations should fear her.

Thinking about that cooled him off considerably.

“Speaking of, I tried my hand at herbalism a while back,” she said. She crossed the room to her clothes and felt around in one of the pockets. She brought out a small tin and handed it to him. It was plain iron, stamped with little flowers, and when he opened it the inside was full of herbs. “That, my friend, is a remedy cooked up by yours truly for your nightmares.”

He snapped the lid shut. 

“How did you know about those?” Who could have told her? Cassandra? Lavellan? He didn’t think anyone else knew. They weren’t supposed to know. He could see Lavellan mentioning it to her if he truly thought she could help. But would they have told her what the dreams were about? Had he ever described them, to anyone, except to say they were about the horrors he’d witnessed?

“Your local Compassion spirit. Cole. He told me you suffer from nightmares, and I can help,” she said. Her glee had drained away. She picked at the nails of one hand with the other. “I thought this was what he meant. It’s tea. Just herbs, nothing more.”

Cole. Of course. 

“Did he tell you anything else?” he asked. She frowned, and shook her head.

“Not really. He said you told him I’m here to help people. Thanks, by the way, for that testimonial. I gather the little guy doesn’t usually like Wardens,” she said. 

“He was at Adamant,” Cullen explained. But she didn’t look enlightened. Just nervous, and uneasy. And she meant well, didn’t she? It was a gift. He shouldn’t be so churlish about a gift. Even if it touched on his most secret shames. So he took a deep breath, and he tried to let his defensive irritation blow out with his exhale.

“Thank you. Truly. I am not accustomed to talking about them,” he said, by way of apology. Her eyes warmed immediately. “But I’m afraid I’ve tried all the common sleeping draughts. They just make it all worse.”

“Oh, that’s not for sleep. It’s a very common remedy for older folks whose hearts aren’t doing well. It slows things down -- I think it thins out the blood, because if you take it too much you can start to bleed excessively from little cuts. I first tried it on some of my support troops at Amaranthine, after the Blight. A lot of them had nightmares after facing all those darkspawn. The theory was that when you’re afraid, your heart races. And if you can keep the heart from racing you can cut down on some of the fear,” she said. She chewed her bottom lip, thoughtfully. He tried to focus on what she was saying and not what she looked like saying it. “It works. Sometimes. It’s better than nothing, anyway. But you have to make sure not to overdo it. One teaspoon of herbs in one cup of tea. Any more and you’ll get dizzy. I worry a little about you being dizzy in your morning practices, but I think you have a right to try this. If you want.”

“My morning practices?” She usually came out after the sun rose, when the bailey was crowded and he’d retreated to higher ground to supervise the drills. Being dizzy might be a problem when he was running through morning conditioning, but surely he’d be able to stand still and shout down commands. Was she blushing?

No. She had to just be flushed from the warmth of the fire.

“Dorian insisted I go out to see you and your men run through your conditioning,” she said. And that was all well enough, but why wouldn’t she look him in the eye when she said it?

“Why on earth would Dorian think you needed to see that? Does he think you need to join in? I know you camp on your own, often, but I would think magic would be a better defense than any amount of fitness,” he said, confused. Now he was certain she was blushing. She made a little negating, shaking motion with her hands and turned away. She busied herself with her clothes. Perhaps they were dry by now. 

“I think he wanted to share the visual treat of you all without your shirts on,” she said. She shimmied into her pants, but did not take off his shirt. She simply threw her cloak on over it and tucked her own shirt under her arm. “And it is quite the treat. Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that without saying anything like some voyeur.”

Was she blushing because she’d seen him without his shirt? Was she blushing because she liked what she saw?

With his luck she was probably red in the face from the memory of one of his men. 

“I should get back to my rooms. I’ve bothered you enough for one night,” she said, still facing away. 

_Stop. You’re not bothering me. You couldn’t bother me._

The words seemed to be stuck in his throat.

She paused, turning back to look at him. She was only a few steps from the door. Her eyes were rueful, now. She looked very different in her red cloak. Like a bandit, almost. It hid her red hair and cast most of her face into shadow.

“I was originally planning to ask you a favor, but I don’t think it would be fair to you now. Not since you’ve changed your views on mages,” she admitted. He frowned. 

“What was the favor?” he said. If she took off the cloak and smiled at him again he might well agree to anything she asked.

“I’ve just about talked everyone into trying the ritual with me. Dagna’s come up with something to contain the blight that’s released. We’re testing it on some red lyrium tomorrow. After that, we’re going to test it on me,” she said.

No. Absolutely not.

“Dorian says it’s experimental. Dangerous.”

“Yes, well. Everything worth doing is dangerous.” She waved her hand dismissively, casually disregarding the threat to her very existence. “I had this idea in my head of a kind of do-over. A second version of my Harrowing. With you watching over me to make sure that if I became some kind of monster I’d be stopped. But you’re not in that line of work anymore.”

“No, but--” he scrambled for the words. “I won’t allow you to be the one to do it. This is reckless. Even for you.”

“It has to be me,” she said. A smile tugged at those lips he wanted to kiss so badly. Was he being foolish? Was she right, and he was just too caught up in wanting to touch her to think clearly? “I’m the only real Warden in Skyhold. And if you think I’m going to summon any of my people here just so they can risk dying in my place, you’ve got another think coming. You wouldn’t do that to your men, either.”

She was right. He wouldn’t.

But he would damn well tell Leliana to write to the southern Wardens. They owed the Inquisition. And summoning them here wouldn’t be any different than ordering them to go fight demons. He had absolutely no qualms with that.

“At least wait,” he said. She shook her head.

“If there’s anything the past few years have taught me it’s that if you wait, some catastrophe will steal all your chances,” she said. She tilted her head at him, smiling. Her hands clenched on the edges of her cloak. “Just like you and me. If we’d taken our chance to be together back before I got recruited to the Gray Wardens, we would have had that. It would have been brief, but all of those terrible things would have happened anyway. Our caution only kept us from having good memories later.”

Wait.

Their chance? 

Had she--?

Did she ever?

Before he could muster enough coherent thought to string any words together she bobbed a little goodbye bow and left. Just, opened the door and plunged out into the rain. Leaving him sitting on the stool, mind racing. 

Their chance to be together. Had she wanted to be together? When they were young?

Was his ridiculous infatuation not one-sided?

He had thought she was teasing him. When she offered to go somewhere alone, to talk. But not just to talk. Or, at best, that she was simply flirting with him because she was bored, and a teenager, and he was just someone to practice her wiles on. 

But maybe not.

And now? If she knew what he wanted, would she have stayed? 

To have good memories later, if nothing else.

And what if she really were the person who did the experiment? What if she died, and all this time thinking he was indifferent to her only cost them what little chance they had?

He sat there in his office for a long, long time. In the end all his racing thoughts only led him to one conclusion. Cole was right-- he wished now that he’d picked her the damn flowers.

_ The Tower was almost dark this time of night. A few sconces, still lit, kept the shadows from taking over. Even now there had to be some kind of patrol. The Templars couldn’t be sleeping while mages practiced blood magic right under their noses._

_ He rounded the corner to the library. It was still well lit, as always. And nearly empty. But she was there. Just as he’d hoped she would be._

_ Her red hair was loose, flowing down her back. It glinted like fresh blood in the lamplight. He wanted to run his fingers through it so badly he could hardly breathe. But his gloves, armored and scaled, would only hurt her if he were to try that. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her._

_ When he got closer he saw her shoulders were shaking under her dark green robe._

_ “Amell?” he asked, softly. She turned and rose in one fluid motion. Her face was streaked with tears. His heart tugged, his arms opened. She went to him, hands on the templar crest on his breastplate, and laid her head against him. He held her, gently as he could so as not to crush her between gauntlets and breastplate. She did not make much noise, crying. _

_ “Ivy, what’s wrong?” he whispered. She pressed against him, harder, her whole body shaking. He dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. She smelled like lavender, like always. _

_ “They heard me talking to Niall about apostates. About leaving the Circle.” Her voice was hoarse, shaking. “They’re talking about making me Tranquil. I was only talking! It was all just theory! I don’t want to leave.”_

_ She looked up, her face just below his. Her eyes were wide and dark, her cheeks wet. He gave into impulse and kissed the corners of her eyes, kissing away the salt lingering there. Then he pressed his lips against her forehead. Right on the spot where she would carry the brand._

_ “They won’t do that, sweetheart,” he assured her. She gulped, trying to calm herself. He stroked her cheek, gently, unable to feel the warmth of her skin through his gloves. “You passed your Harrowing. They wouldn’t.”_

_ One moment she was looking up at him, eyes wet and wide, as if willing herself to believe the things he said. The next she was kissing him. Her lips were soft, and warm, and he kissed her back with all the desperate hunger that haunted him every day he spent with her. Her hands were on his face, holding him to her as if he might try to escape. But leaving was the last thing on his mind._

_ “Oh, for pity’s sake.”_

_ His blood ran cold. His eyes opened, and he jerked away from Ivy. Meredith was standing on the other side of the library. Knight-Commander Meredith, and her faithful second in command. _

_ The Cullen Rutherford facing him was older, stronger, his armor bearing insignia of rank he’d never hoped to achieve. His face was cold. And the man’s eyes were red with the glow of tainted lyrium._

_Cullen squeezed Ivy, once, and then put her behind him. He stood between her and Meredith. But he knew it wouldn’t do any good._

“_The both of you are guilty. And both of you will be punished,” Meredith said._

_Knight Captain Rutherford strode toward them, his hand on his sword. Cullen knew what would happen next. His heart sinking, he drew his sword. The broadsword he wielded in his youth. Knight Commander Rutherford unsheathed his own sword, and pulled his shield up. A scowl darkened his features. Without a single word, he attacked._

_His blows were vicious, punishing. His shield was as much a weapon as his sword. And Cullen, strong but clumsy with his overweight broadsword, was beaten back. _

“_You think you can change?” Knight Captain Rutherford hit him, hard, with his shield. His whole weight was behind it. And Cullen fell, hard, barely bringing his sword up in time to block the next blow. _

_He heard a scream, and looked away from his opponent for only a fraction of a second. Meredith was advancing on Ivy. Her sword was bare. And the young mage looked terrified._

_And he couldn’t get to her._

“_You’re a disgrace,” Knight Captain Rutherford growled. His sword plunged down. _


	7. A Kiss in the Library

“Rumor has it that you spent quite some time in the Commander’s office last night,” Dorian said. Ivy stumbled, almost dropping her staff.

Their morning practice was just wrapping up. She’d brought up her concern about carrying a heavier staff, and Dorian had roped in one of the swordsmen to see if she could even swing a blade – or a magic blade – hard enough to matter. Her sword arm wasn’t anything to write home about. But that was hardly surprising. Wielding a staff takes different muscles entirely.

“Well, aren’t you well-informed.” She wasn’t inclined to elaborate. His eyes glinted with mischief. He clearly thought something scandalous and delightful was going on with her and Cullen.

Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

She’d thought about it. Standing in his bedroom, listening to him move around in the office below. Her fingers shook when she skimmed out of her wet clothes. And, well, it wasn’t much of a stretch to leave her pants off with her shirt. They were both wet. Unpleasant. And it had certainly occurred to her that maybe, just perhaps, the man would like what he saw.

All those years ago in the Circle she’d thought about it more than once. Maybe back then it was just the idea of being wanted. His blushes couldn’t have been more obvious. She wasn’t sure she would have ever done anything too salacious, but she’d read enough torrid Orleisian romances to know that having a tall, muscular man fawn at her feet would be a great deal of fun.

But he was sweet, back then. She remembered.

And then catastrophe stole all their chances. And she’d thought his personal hell stole all the kindness from him, too. All the soft, sweet pieces of him that she’d seen in the glints of his smile and the care he took of his men these past few weeks. She thought, before she came here to Skyhold, that those parts of him were a casualty of the Blight. One of many. He seemed to have recovered them.

Now that she was older, more experienced, she could think of better places for a man built like him to fall than at her feet. And she didn’t _think_ it would be fun—she _knew_ it would.

“Are congratulations in order?” Dorian pressed. She sighed. He could at least keep his voice down. They were just now leaving the bailey, drifting toward other duties with everyone else who came out for morning practice.

“Are you picturing an epic romance, Dorian? Two young lovers torn apart by the Blight, reunited a decade later? I’m sorry to disappoint, my friend, but that isn’t the kind of epic story I take part in,” she teased him. He recoiled in fake surprise, although the look on his face was very shrewd.

“What? No romance? My dear, I had no idea you were living such a life. Truly, the angels must weep,” Dorian said. Despite herself, she laughed.

And accidentally made eye contact with Cullen, who was stalking toward the main hall not ten feet away from her.

He didn’t look at all amused.

“So what were the two of you doing, then?” Dorian asked.

“Playing chess. How do you even know about it?” she asked. She decided on the spot that Dorian did not need to know about Cullen lending her his shirt. She had it, folded up in her pack in her room. Maybe she’d remember to give it back. Maybe not. It was big enough to wear on its own, practically, and very soft.

“You wouldn’t believe how quickly gossip spreads,” Cullen chimed in, his voice so low it was almost a growl. She could just imagine him growling like that, right in her ear, all the things he wanted to do to her.

He was back in his customary armor and cloak. Was the shirt peeking through between his shoulder plates and gauntlets as soft as the one she’d borrowed?

It really was a pity he didn’t seem interested.

“Sorry,” she said, to Cullen. He raised an eyebrow in inquiry. “About the rumors. I didn’t mean to make you lose face in front of your men.”

“I wouldn’t say he _lost_ face,” Dorian chuckled. “You are, after all, the Hero of Fereldan.”

“_Dorian_,” Cullen snapped, the single word both warning and command. To her very great surprise, Dorian backed off. 

“Oh, would you look at that. I think I see a very handsome elf standing all on his own,” Dorian said, as if ignoring Cullen. It would have been a good exit line, true or not, but Lavellan actually was standing up on the dais talking with Josephine. Dorian gave her a little wave goodbye, continued to ignore Cullen, and skipped off to join his lover up by the throne.

No one could say he didn’t have style.

Cullen sighed heavily, rubbing the back of his neck in an old self-conscious gesture. Ivy patted him on the arm. It was meant to be reassuring, but the poor man nearly jumped out of his skin when she touched him. He seemed to instantly regret the overreaction.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just, don’t need any help embarrassing myself in front of you. Apparently. Not that I could possibly stop Dorian if I tried.”

“No one can stop Dorian.” People were streaming around them in the hall. Their steps were slow, now. She was angling toward the Undercroft. Dagna should be just about ready for their first experiment. If she knew the young dwarf- and she did – Dagna had probably been up all night tinkering with it.

The Inquisition mages wanted to start with red lyrium. Which was fine with her. She’d tried out her theories on a few darkspawn she managed to find on the road. So far, she was absolutely certain that she knew how to remove the Blight from a living creature. And according to Dagna, the Inquisition had some evidence that lyrium was alive. In a way.

The darkspawn she’d experimented on all disintegrated as soon as the Blight was removed. Which sort of confirmed that they were simply a very specific form of undead. She wasn’t sure what red lyrium would do—it could return to normal, or shatter, or change into something new.

“I was wondering, actually, if you had a moment. To talk.” Cullen studied her out of the corner of his eye. He seemed exceptionally nervous. She’d told him last night about her plans to run the experiment today. Maybe it was about that. These Skyhold folks were incredibly cautious.

“Sure,” she said. He gave her a little shaky nod and led her through the door to the War Room. But instead of continuing on toward Josephine’s office he took her down a flight of stairs toward the kitchens. They turned, in the lower hall, and he led her through a massive wooden door into what appeared to be another library.

Every surface was covered in dust. No one had made any attempt to clear out spiders, either, and their webs were everywhere. The place smelled of damp stone and very old books, and for just a moment she was viscerally reminded of the Tower. She drew a shaky breath, and leaned against the ancient table.

“This is. . . I wanted to ask you. Privately. What you meant just before you left, last night,” Cullen said.

What?

The tips of his ears were very pink. His hands rested on the pommel of his sword, not in threat but out of old comfort-seeking habit. What was it she’d said just before she left?

“About catastrophe stealing all our chances?” she guessed. He breathed out a long, slow breath, watching her face. But he did not seem to realize it was a question. “Do you think differently?”

“I didn’t realize. . .” He stopped, cleared his throat, tried again. “I didn’t know there were any chances. To lose.”

All right, now he wasn’t making any sense.

His eyes were wide and dark, staring down at her. With the scent of old books filling her nose and the sight of him looming over her in that gleaming armor, she could have sworn it was nearly like travelling back in time. Her heart raced in her chest. She felt almost like a young girl again, stumbling toward her first brush with confusing feelings.

Was that what he meant?

Was he transported back to being that young man who stammered at the sight of her?

“You mean, our chances to be together?” she hazarded. He took a half step forward, hesitant but focused. Like the world was narrow, and small, and contained only this room and the both of them in it.

“I never thought you. . . _did_ you ever. . .” He seemed to struggle to find the words. The pink blush on the tips of his ears was joined by the flush in his cheeks. Clearly embarrassed, he covered his eyes with one hand, rubbing at the tense lines of his own brow. “Maker’s breath.”

She let him find his own words, her heart thudding in her own ears. She didn’t want to assume. But if he didn’t get around to it soon she might faint from the anticipation. It would be the only time in her life she’d ever fainted from anything less severe than catastrophic blood loss but there had to be a first time for everything.

“I know how I felt. How I feel,” he said. His voice was soft and low. It almost seemed impossibly, wrong, that it could be the same voice that just growled at Dorian and shouted orders at soldiers all morning. But it was. She licked lips gone inexplicably dry. “But I never thought you might. . . feel. . . anything for me.”

Oh, Andraste’s knickerweasels, this was more serious than she ever thought.

He didn’t take his hand down from over his eyes. Like if he looked at her, his courage would fail him. Which was ridiculous. She was entirely certain his courage had never failed him in his entire life.

Just like hers had never failed her.

So why would it be easier to be facing down a horde in the Deep Roads than having this conversation?

“Of course I. . .” If only she could think of a joke. Something witty, to defuse the tension crackling in this room. Damnit, why couldn’t he just kiss her like a normal human being?

She choked, unable to finish the thought. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say. But the silence stretched, between them. And after a long time, he ran the hand that covered his eyes back through his hair and looked at her at last. His smile was more brave than genuine.

“Of course.” His voice was still very soft. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to cause any distress. Please just forget I said anything.”

Oh. He thought she was rejecting him.

He was already turning, leaving her down here in this library that smelled just like their old home. And it was entirely, utterly unacceptable.

She was across the room in two steps. She grabbed a handful of the fluffy feathers puffing off his shoulders, and stopped him. He didn’t turn. He just stared ahead, as if looking at her would be too much. He used to do that, back in the Circle. After they talked, late at night, or she teased him.

So she did what she wanted to do, all those years ago.

She leaned up, on her tiptoes, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. His stubble pricked at her lips, but his face was warm. He sighed, and relaxed by inches, leaning down a little so she didn’t have to strain so hard to reach him.

Her hand on his arm, to steady herself, she pressed little kisses to his jaw, his cheekbone, the top of the scar that cut through his lip. And then she pressed her lips gently against his.

His careful stillness snapped like a plucked bowstring.

His hands were sliding along her jaw, into her hair. His body was pressing her, pushing her backwards, back into the wall of shelves. She hit it with a thud and a crash, and books fell all around them.

That seemed to wake him up.

He jerked away from her as if her touch burned his skin. His eyes were dark and wild.

“I’m sorry! I –“ he said, panic lacing his tone. But she grabbed him by the leather straps holding his armor to his cloak, and she kissed him again. This time he melted into her, letting go of some fear or inhibition that had kept him distant for far too long.

He pinned her to the shelves, pressed her between the broad, hard expanse of his body and the old wood behind her. She made a little sound, deep in her throat, and he deepened their kiss, tasting her with a hunger that seemed endless and insatiable.

And it wasn’t enough for her, either.

She pulled him closer, encouraging him. His thigh slipped between hers, his hand slid down her hip and pulled her leg up to wrap around his waist. She could feel him through his breeches and her leathers, hard and hot and insistent. When she ground against him, he growled into her mouth.

Maker’s bloody wounds, if he wanted to have her right here and now against these shelves she wouldn’t say no.

His fingertips trailed along her neck toward her hair, his thumb rubbing along the line of her jaw. The feel of his leather gloves against her skin make her breath come sharp, made her moan into his mouth. His hips twitched and jerked against her, providing pressure almost just where she wanted it most and making her absolutely _crazy_.

“_Ivy_.” He whispered her name against her lips. It shuddered through her, making her body tremble against his. His hand clenched on her hip, holding her still. “_Maker_, I-“

Laughter, mischievous as a child’s, filled the air, followed by the slam of a door and guttural cursing. Cullen’s whole body tensed. But no one came near them. The laughter and cursing trailed away, as though someone were being chased by another, more irritable, someone.

He did not move to kiss her again. He did look, long and hard, at her eyes, her mouth, the place in her throat where he could no doubt see her pulse hammering against her skin. The moment stretched between them and left the yearning, aching unfulfilled want inside her still, deep in her belly.

“It’s hard to believe I’m awake,” he whispered. His thigh was still between hers, his body holding her to the shelves. Every move, every breath, made their bodies touch.

“So you dream about me often?” She was teasing, but she hoped he did answer. His thumb brushed softly against her cheek.

“Almost every night,” he admitted. “Mind you, they usually aren’t good dreams. Not- not like this. Now, if you were to explode in a shower of red lyrium right about now that would be a good clue I was still dreaming.”

Something about what he was telling her nagged at a half-forgotten memory, but it was terribly out of place in this moment. Here, with his hand tight on her hip and his mouth just inches from her own, she wanted to only think about good things. She filed that away for later and took advantage of where he was to press another kiss against his mouth.

It was a long, long time before they parted. And it was, of course, his idea. He set her down, carefully, as though she were fragile as an egg. But his smile was bright and genuine, and just for her. Her heart still fluttered in her chest.

Had they really just done that?

When could she do it again?

“We should. . .” He smiled down at her, and reached for her one last time. Just to caress her cheek in the palm of his hand. “I mean, people will begin to miss us. Maker forbid, they might actually come looking for us. We should . . . return.”

“Right. Poor Dagna. She’s probably been waiting since dawn to rip the Blight out of some red lyrium,” she acknowledged. He nodded, but he was leaning in, his hand still on her cheek. He kissed her. Soft, and sweet, and all too briefly.

“I admit, I’m uneasy knowing the two of you are working together now. I’m not sure Skyhold can withstand a sizeable explosion from within,” he said. He did not seem to be joking. She grinned anyway, rocking on her heels.

“It’s not like we haven’t worked together before. And everyone who was supposed to survive made it out,” she said. His eyebrows lifted, lip quirking in that maddening little half smile. “I’m the one who helped her get out of Orzammar and into the Circle in the first place, you know. I took her message to the Grand Enchanter. And Irving owed me.”

“So this is all your doing,” Cullen noted. He swallowed, smile briefly giving way to a thoughtful frown. “Come to think of it, a lot of what shaped the Inquisition is your doing. You did kill the dragon that previously guarded Haven, which is what allowed the Conclave to meet there.”

“Yep.”

“And you did spare Anders in Amaranthine.”

“Who hasn’t made friends with an abomination or two?”

“I don’t _think_ I have.”

“You’re missing out.”

If he’d just stop staring at her with those puppy dog eyes she could wiggle her fingers farewell and sail on out without a qualm.

“You should go on upstairs,” he said, as if he could read her mind. He stepped back, stopped touching her. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. He was right. It was past time. She smiled, hand clenching with the effort of not squeezing his hand when she walked past because if she touched him again she wouldn’t leave. And she jogged back upstairs.

It was the work of a moment to slip out through the busy hall. No one seemed to pay her much attention. Which was just fine with her.

She went directly to the Undercroft. Dagna was, as she expected, impatiently hammering away at some new invention. The dwarf threw up her hands with an exclamation of frustration when Ivy walked in.

“Where have you been? No, nevermind. Let me just—“ Dagna brutally smashed whatever it was she was working on with her hammer, knocking it into a groove on one of her machines where it would reliably stay put. “I want to see what it does!”

“Yes, absolutely,” Ivy laughed. 

Dagna had the ceremonial space set up just like she’d suggested. Her earlier experiments with darkspawn stragglers weren’t nearly this ornate. But they also didn’t take place inside a heavily populated fortress. So, precautions were sensible. She’d set up the red lyrium inside an apparatus that she assured everyone that would listen would contain anything. Absolutely anything, from a demon to a grenade.

The door opened behind her, and Cullen steeped through. If he was just going to follow her, why not walk with her? Those dreaded rumors Dorian mentioned?

Dagna paused in her scurrying just long enough to give him an opportunity to interrupt her if he was there to say something important. When he did not, she simply continued. She made Ivy take two steps further back. Then she gave the mage a thumbs-up.

Ivy did not want to use her staff for this. She wanted to feel the magic, let it go herself—especially if one day soon she’d feel it directed at her.

The ritual was difficult to figure out, but simple to execute. Much like changing one’s physical form. And, just like turning into a giant spider, it took a few minutes. But it was worth it. She’d spent the last few years of her life coming up with this, and she had plenty of good information to start with. The work of Avernus, Morrigan, and even Jowan was incorporated into her final product. It was her best guess at how to replicate what happened to Fiona in the Deep Roads, the thing that made her not a Warden anymore.

Everybody always tried to fix the Blight like it was an illness. And it was. It moved like any other blood-borne disease. But disease is part of the natural world. And the Blight was, for lack of a better term, _un_natural. It had to do with the Fade, and the Veil, in a way she didn’t quite understand. From what she could determine the Fade and the real world wanted to be the same, and they were separated not by anything physical but by a certain perspective, a method of being, a magic rooted in what might be Ancient Tevinter or might be even older.

The Blight was just the most terrible side effect of that separation, of the Veil and the consequences for tampering with it. The Mage Collective shared their research on rift magic with her while they were developing it, and it was the final piece to the puzzle for her. She couldn’t reverse time or heal the Blight. That was beyond anyone. But she could reshape the wrongness of the Blight, bring balance back to the pieces of the being that was corrupted.

She felt it gather, and let it stream out. Slowly. She was still practicing this. Dagna’s apparatus made it more difficult. She’d talk to the dwarf about that.

But she just about had it.

The red was leaching out of the lyrium. It shone, brilliant blue, not bloody red. It was—

_BOOM_.

The lyrium exploded into tiny fragments, nearly dust. It coated the entire inside of Dagna’s apparatus. But it was blue. The dust was blue, not red.

“Oh, hey, so that kind of worked?” Dagna said. Ivy grinned at her, and stretched. She worked her jaw open, trying to pop it. Working that particular spell made her tense all over.

“That doesn’t look like the best idea.”

Ivy looked up, startled, to find Lavellan standing at the top of the stairs. He stood with his hip slung wide, hand resting on it, casual as if he were watching some Rivani play.

“It was a good idea, Warden. But I don’t think my spymaster will forgive me if I let you blow yourself up,” he continued. Wait, what was he saying?

“It reacts differently with living tissue,” she assured him. He shook his head, softly. Did this half-grown stripling of a mage think he could tell her what risks she was going to take? “I assure you there is little danger of exploding.”

“Just think of the hand bills,” he drawled. “Inquisition Blows Up Hero of Fereldan. No thank you.” She started to walk toward him, mouth curling in a snarl, but reminded herself that she was standing in his fortress.

“What if I can demonstrate to you that this is perfectly safe for a living creature? Lyrium is volatile anyway, as you well know,” she pointed out. He grimaced his uncertainty.

“If you could, that might be something. But I dislike the idea of sacrificing Wardens for this,” he said. She bit her tongue on all the comments about Adamant that came to mind.

“I was thinking darkspawn,” she said.

“Oh. Well, if you can un-blight a couple darkspawn, that would be quite the show,” Lavellan said. His smile turned condescending. As if in his twenty-some-odd years of life he’d seen enough to think he could tell her what was possible and what wasn’t.

She took her leave before she said something she’d regret.

Scowling, Ivy kicked and stomped her way up the stairs to Leliana’s rookery. Leli’s spies gave her a wide berth. Smart people. Leliana trained them well.

Her old friend was seated at a plain wooden table, writing something. As always, the candles on her little altar to Andraste were lit. Ivy considered this space to be a good indication of Leliana’s true character. If she wanted, she could get herself a big imposing desk like Josephine. She could wear pretty heeled boots all over Skyhold. She could decorate her office with fine tapestries, nice statues, and no one would think twice about it. But, with all the resources of the Inquisition at her disposal, she kept a humble little table and a small altar.

And a nice stock of wine.

“There you are. Did Lavellan find you?” Leliana asked. Oh. Great. People were looking for her earlier. When she was making out with Cullen in the library like some kind of teenager.

Well, more accurately, like she wanted to when she was a teenager.

“He found me.” Ivy decided on the spot that Leliana didn’t need to know anything about how she spent her morning. “He wasn’t very reassured by Dagna’s test. Apparently I’ve given him the impression that I’m going to blow myself up.”

“Well, that explains the thundercloud that’s following you around,” Leliana smiled. Ivy glanced up. There was not, in fact, a literal thundercloud. But as a mage she felt she needed to check. Magic manifests in odd ways sometimes and there’s a first time for everything. “What will you do now?”

“Well, I can either sneak off and just do things my way, which, you know I always prefer that.” It’s so cumbersome to work with other people. They go so slowly, and need so many assurances. “Or I can capture a couple of hurlocks and make a big demonstration out of them. They’re less combustible than lyrium.”

“Ah.” Leliana set her quill down. Her gaze was very shrewd. “I’m surprised that you haven’t already just tried it out on yourself, to be honest. Not that I’m encouraging you to do so.”

“I would, if it was just about figuring out if it worked,” Ivy said. She slumped down onto the bench across the table from Leliana. Several of Leliana’s people milled around, and since they were all spies they no doubt were hanging on every word. But that didn’t bother Ivy. Not with this topic. “You know Weisshaupt isn’t going to approve of this. No matter how safe it is or isn’t, it’s a change to the fundamental nature of the Order. If there’s a way out? We’re a different organization than we ever have been.”

“Not to mention the feeling of betrayal the older Wardens will feel. Their friends went to the Deep Roads to die, and now people don’t have to suffer that same fate? Some people feel the need to perpetuate pain just because if it was avoidable then their loved ones suffered in vain,” Leliana added.

“They’re going to oppose this,” Ivy said, grimly. She tapped her fingertips on the table. “But if it’s big, and showy? If everyone in the Inquisition sees it, talks about it, writes it down—maybe I can make sure this cure doesn’t get lost.”

“You might have a better ally there than you think,” Leliana said. The corner of her mouth curled up. “I wrote to King Alistair—“

“Oh, _Leli_—“

“He’s a fellow Gray Warden, is he not? And a friend? I was surprised that you hadn’t told him-“

“You know damn well why I didn’t tell him what I was doing!” Ivy snapped. “Meddlesome giant hero might as well stick a ‘kill me’ sign on his back for all the care he takes of his own life and I-“

“You might as well do the same?” Leliana suggested. She looked, for just a moment, as mischievous as the young bard she used to be. Ivy huffed her disapproval. But there was no point arguing with Leliana about it, the damage was already done.

“So I assume he’s on his way?” Ivy said. Alistair would take any chance to abandon his royal duties temporarily. Besides, she knew she was one of his big soft spots. The giant lug would come down very hard against her volunteering to be the first Warden cured. He’d probably want that honor himself. Not least because if he was cured he’d finally feel free to marry that Cousland woman.

Ivy could just hear him now, waxing poetic about how he’d be honored to risk his life for the honor of marrying the woman he loved. Which would be entirely ridiculous and counter-productive. She wanted him alive for the next forty years, with at least one good heir and a couple of spares, to ensure Fereldon wouldn’t descend into chaos after all her hard work to save it.

“His Majesty will arrive in approximately two weeks,” Leliana said, delicately. Great. Just great. With a heavy sigh, Ivy pushed off from the table and stood. “Where are you going?”

“I need to talk to Dagna about some cages that might be strong enough to hold a Hurlock. Or twenty. If I don’t get those back here before Alistair arrives he’s going to want to come darkspawn hunting with me,” Ivy said. She pointed at Leliana. “You need to help. You just advanced my timetable considerably. I’m going to need some raw materials, I’m sure.”

“Not a problem. But, ah, all uses of Inquisition materials are going to have to be cleared through Lavellan,” Leliana reminded her. Stifling a frustrated scream, Ivy went back downstairs. She and Dagna were going to have to work fast.


	8. Can't Outrun Nightmares

Did she regret it?

Did she want more?

Cullen couldn’t stop thinking about those kisses in the library. How his control had snapped when her lips met his, how he’d all but slammed her into that bookshelf. He should be ashamed but he wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Because she didn’t seem to mind at all.

Maker, the noises she’d made against his lips.

If he wasn’t careful, if he didn’t keep a tight rein on his thoughts, his mind wandered. To the way her hips ground against his, half-consciously, the want coursing through her just as plainly as it coursed through him. To the feel of her skin under his hands. The way her legs looked, climbing down the ladder wearing only his shirt. The red halo of her hair in the fire. The soft gasping moans that spilled out of her mouth when he finally just kissed her. The way she pulled him close, silenced his doubts with that yank on his armor.

If he didn’t keep a tight rein on his thoughts he felt like he was surely going mad.

She disappeared after that. He looked for her, in the library and in the garden. He didn’t quite dare to knock on her chamber door. Eventually he simply retreated to his office in the hopes that if she wanted to see him she would look for him there. In the hopes that she wanted to see him at all.

He tried to focus, to use his time productively. The Maker only gives a man twenty-four hours each day, after all. But he couldn’t.

And as the day wore on, he began to wonder. To doubt.

She wasn’t coming to see him.

She regretted kissing him.

It was a mistake. A horrible mistake. Somehow he’d misinterpreted everything, and she was afraid of him. Afraid of the brute that took her innocent butterfly kisses and slammed her against a wall in his lust.

Except, he couldn’t have been that wrong. Could he?

Cullen drove himself mad with those circling thoughts well past supper time. She did not come to his office. He waited, not sure whether he should light a fire or go in search of her. His candles were not bright enough. And he was wasting them, not hardly seeing the parchment in front of his eyes.

He had to find her.

She wasn’t in the library, or the hidden lower library where they’d met this morning. She wasn’t in the dining hall, or the tavern. Heroically, Cullen resisted the urge to find Cole and demand the young spirit tell him what Ivy was thinking. If he wanted to know he should ask her. No fair bringing magic into it unnecessarily.

Eventually he had no choice. He knocked on her chamber door.

“Come in?” Her voice, uncertain. He took a deep breath. Opened the door.

There she was, sitting on her bed in a pile of papers. She wore _his shirt_ over leather pants, looking as tiny and spritely as she ever looked in her apprentice robes. But she was not alone.

Cullen’s chest seemed to swell, chokingly, registering that Varric was here, Varric of all people, before he could reason any of it out. Before he could at all make sense of the scene before him. She had Varric in her chambers. All the blood in Cullen’s body seemed to rush to his head, roaring in his ears and making his very thoughts pound.

The dwarf sat across from her on the bed, the wide gulf of many maps and papers between them. It took Cullen several eternal heartbeats to register that they were both fully dressed. Three feet apart. Not touching. Not drinking together. Not canoodling by any means.

And by that point he’d already missed something Varric said.

“Aren’t you, Curly?” the hairy dwarf was asking him. But Ivy was shaking her head.

“No, Cullen certainly counts as a resource of the Inquisition. I’m not supposed to use those without the Inquisitor’s high and mighty permission, now am I?” Ivy said. What? None of this was making sense.

Were those maps of the Storm Coast?

“Now, now, I’m sure Curly wasn’t coming around here on official business. Not at this hour,” Varric said, soothingly. His brow furroughed, his eyes twinkling with surmise. “Come to think of it, what was it you wanted?”

“Ah.” Cullen tried to swallow but his mouth was dry. “What’s going on here?”

“We’re determining the best place to hunt darkspawn,” Ivy said. Her eyes wandered back to the pile of papers before her. That was certainly a map of the Storm Coast. And another map under it, of the Western Approach.

“I could help with that,” Cullen said. He took an awkward half step forward.

“Just what I was saying. He’s exactly the man we need,” Varric endorsed this roundly. The pounding of Cullen’s heart slowed and softened. He hadn’t interrupted anything. It wasn’t like that. He felt like an idiot. But that was what he got for knocking on her door in the first place.

“I don’t have time to wait for the Inquisitor to get back and endorse my plans. I need to move on this now. As soon as possible,” Ivy said. She glanced up at Cullen. “It’s been hard enough getting together the materials for the cages. Sorry, Cullen, but this is an emergency.”

What?

“I’m sure Curly would be glad to give you his honest opinion of your plan as a friend. Off the clock,” Varric said, reasonably. He shot Cullen a look that suggested he should chime in and endorse this plan.

“Uh, yes. I could.” Damnit, he’d only wanted to talk to her in private. About this morning. But there were obviously bigger things afoot. With great effort Cullen willed himself to focus.

“Ugh, fine.” Ivy slapped her hand down on the heavy vellum map. She fixed her gaze on him. He did his very, very best not to look at her mouth. Or further down, at anything that would remind him of why he’d really come here. “Your Inquisitor wants me to demonstrate that the cure I’ve got works on darkspawn. It clearly works on red lyrium but it’s a little bit, ah, explosive. I think a bit of demonstration would be great. Get people really talking. I can get together the cages to transport three to five of the things. Depending on which kind we run across.”

“Is the taint that the darkspawn carry really the same as the Grey Wardens?” Cullen asked. Ivy flinched, her mouth going thin. Why? What had he said?

“Close enough,” she answered, her tone breezy in defiance of her obvious discomfort. “Point is, we’re working against a real time crunch here. Alistair’s coming in two weeks. We need to be back by then or he’s going to want to come hunting with us. Probably in disguise, the fool.”

It took him a moment to work out that she meant Alastair Theirin, King of Fereldon. The fool, apparently. Despite himself he had to grin at her cheekiness.

“I think Lavellan’s just about got the Western Approach sewn up,” Varric said. He tapped the map of the Western Approach for emphasis. “But there’s some reports of darkspawn along the Storm Coast. Could be worth checking out.”

“They come up every two to three weeks. The Blades of Hessarian haven’t yet had much trouble with their numbers,” Cullen said. He crossed the room to the bed. Her room. Her bed. The whole space smelled like old vellum and parchment and her travel-stained equipment. And just a little bit like the air after a storm. Like her.

“So you think there might not be many there,” she said. He nodded agreement. Among the papers on her bed were the old reports from Blackwall. Back before anyone knew his name was really Thom Ranier. Old requests to go looking for Gray Warden equipment in the swamps and forests of Orlais and Ferelden.

“There is one site I doubt our forces have greatly impacted. It was among those that Thom Ranier requested we look into when he first arrived,” Cullen said. He pulled the list out of the pile. “Here. In the Emprise du Lion. We have a camp there, just over Drakon’s Rise. They see darkspawn stragglers enough, but it’s never been the main danger in the area.”

“Red Templars, dragons, freezing wind,” Varric grumbled.

“That sounds like it’s near the old fort of Valeska’s Watch,” Ivy said. “That could be worth checking out.”

“See, I told you. Just the man we need,” Varric said. He slid off the bed and sauntered toward the door. He managed to give Cullen’s back a hearty slap on his way out. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a pint or two of ale that’s been calling my name for the last hour.”

“Thank you, Varric!” Ivy shouted at his retreating back. Varric waved lazily in acknowledgement. He shut the door behind him.

Then it was just Cullen and Ivy. In her bedroom. All alone.

His face was getting warm.

“Thank you.” Ivy’s voice was low. Her eyes were wide, staring up at him.

She was wearing his shirt.

What did that mean?

He couldn’t even think in words. The inside of his mind was as chaotic as a tornado.

“Welcome,” he managed.

She stared up at him. He stared down at her. He couldn’t remember what he came here to say.

“Did you need something else?” she prompted him.

Yes? No? In a way?

“I. . .”

“Is it about this morning?” she asked at last.

Yes. That was it. About this morning. Because even though it seemed like it was weeks ago, it was just this morning.

“Yes.” But he couldn’t think of how to phrase the things he wanted to say. All that time pacing in his office and he hadn’t come up with a single good way to phrase the question?

“Was there something you wanted to say?” she prompted him, gently, obviously completely unaware that he was in hell trying to answer that exact question himself.

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“Did you. . I mean, are you. . . if you ever. . .” he tripped all over his own tongue. She just sat there. Watching. Laughing at him? He prayed not.

“You’re sweet, Cullen,” she said. Her voice was soft and low and the words were right but he had a sinking feeling that they didn’t herald good things. “It’s okay.”

“It is?” What was okay? And if it was all okay, did that mean it was also okay for him to kiss her again? Here? Now? Because that was his shirt, after all, and unbuttoning it and peeling it off her would be the easiest thing in the world.

“We’re ten years and two wars past the Circle and all its rules. You don’t have to look so frightened,” she said. The edge of her lips tugged in a little smile.

That sounded very much like an invitation.

His hand was shaking, or he’d hold it out to her. Pull her off that bed and into his arms. He felt like such an idiot. What does a person say?

“Or maybe it’s. . . okay that you don’t want to kiss me again?” she suggested, slowly. She was studying his face with those wide gray eyes of hers, and she’d clearly come to the wrong conclusion. “There was always a lot of unfinished business there but I know you’ve got a life now, and you probably don’t need—“

He closed the space between them in one step. She fell silent when his fingertips brushed her cheeks. Cradling the edges of her face, delicately, almost afraid to touch her. But he was breathing in the scent of her everywhere, lavender and lightning, and he couldn’t let her think that he hesitated because he didn’t want her.

“You drive me mad,” he said, simply. Which was something he’d wanted to say to Ivy Amell since the first day he spoke to her. He wanted more than anything in the world to press his lips to hers, to feel the warmth and softness of her skin.

So he did.

Her eyes widened, her mouth too, _smiling_ just before their lips met. He held her still with just his fingertips. His mouth moved over hers, seeking entry, and she granted it to him with the most delightful satisfied little sound he’d ever heard in his entire life.

Her hands grabbed at his shoulders, pulling him down, and then they were both on her bed. Crumpling several of the Inquisition’s very fine vellum maps. He brushed them off the bed, letting them clatter to the floor, and let himself sink down. Pressed against the soft curves he’d been dreaming about for all these years.

She tugged, and rolled with him, and he let her. They’d somehow ended up laying down, and she landed astride him. He couldn’t quite process how they’d come to be there, with her pinning him down and kissing him, but every part of him was very happy to be there. The shirt she wore billowed, soft and loose, and his hands teased up under it to touch the warm skin of her back. She favored him with a wolfish grin before pressing her hips against his, hard.

His soul might well leave his body any moment.

“I finally have you at my mercy,” she whispered. In the candlelight it seemed her red hair cast a bloody halo around her head.

_ “You’re at my mercy.” And her grin grew wider, the flare of her hips changing under his hands. Her creamy skin grayed, her face growing more pointed, and he realized her was staring at a desire demon. Her clawed hands clenched on his biceps, drawing blood. But he couldn’t move._

He was up, and she was on the other side of the room, and every fiber of his being was shaking.

Words poured out of Ivy’s mouth, but he couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t hear anything over the roar of blood in his ears, the white-hot scream lancing his thoughts. The whole room seemed to shrink around him, darkening. Her voice finally resolved into his name.

“Cullen?” Her voice almost hurt. He couldn’t tell if she was afraid or just disgusted by the weakness in him. He could hardly breathe past his shame.

“Cullen? Nod if you can understand me,” Ivy said. He nodded, jerkily. He had to get out of here. He was standing. How had that happened? The door was past the bed, past her. He had to go past her to get out. To get into the open air. Maker, but he needed air.

She did not try to stop him.

Thankfully.

His hand closed on the doorknob and he pulled, stumbling out into the dark. He half-fell against the railing outside her room, overlooking the garden. As his breath returned, so did the overwhelming sense of shame.

He’d had her. Right there in his arms. Happy, and seeming to want only him. And now he’d messed it all up. Maybe forever. All because he couldn’t get the old demons out of his idiot head.

“So.”

Oh, Maker, she’d followed him.

But she didn’t say anything else. She just leaned against the railing next to him. Almost a whole pace away. Nowhere near touching.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, eventually. The words were much smaller than the way he felt. But they were what he had.

“Is it. . . you said you’ve changed your mind. About mages.” Her words were very quiet. And there was a question there, somewhere. A question he couldn’t quite pick out.

But he certainly owed her answers. Something.

“You reminded me,” he said. Swallowed, hard, made himself continue. “You reminded me of something I dreamt.”

“Something about how all mages are dangerous?” she said.

“Something about a desire demon wearing your face,” he replied, because he was just about at the end of what little sanity he had and the only truth he had was the kind to tell baldly. He’d surprised her. She turned to look at him—he had her full attention now. Andraste have mercy on him. “You know I have nightmares. But they. . . sorry. I’m sorry. I thought I was better than this.”

“Better than what?”

“_This_,” he hissed, gesturing at himself, at her, at the whole world all around them. “Maker’s breath, it isn’t as though I haven’t had time to get over it. It’s getting worse. It should be getting better.”

She gave him a moment of silence, and he tried to breathe. He could leave, in his shame, tail tucked between his legs. But for all the bad memories she stirred with her presence he didn’t want to walk away from her.

“I get it.” She let out a long, slow breath, and favored him with a soft smile. A healer’s smile, reassuring and vaguely impersonal. “You’re haunted.”

“_What_.”

“That’s what we called it in the Wardens, at Amaranthine and after.” Her hands beat a gentle tattoo on the railing. She seemed almost relaxed. Despite everything. And it helped, for some reason. Because Ivy was the damn Hero of Ferelden, and if there was actually something to be on guard for she’d know about it. If she was relaxed, he could relax. “Some men carry their battles with them. For years afterwards. Something will remind them of a time they were trapped, or helpless, or hurting. And they’ll be back there, in their minds. You can see their whole bodies tense up like they’re about to fight for their lives. Their pasts haunt them.”

Trapped, yes. And hurting. But- “It wasn’t a battle.”

“Well, I’ve seen it in people who suffered other hurts, too. Children who were beaten by their parents, or ripped from their arms. Women who found themselves forced to work in brothels after the chaos of the war. There’s plenty of pain and suffering in this world, Cullen. Soldiers don’t have a monopoly on reliving their worst trauma,” she said, reasonably. By inches, he was relaxing down. Beginning to take note of the world around him, like it was coming into focus. The grain of the wood under his hands. The smell of the night wind whistling over Skyhold. The distant laughter of men leaving the tavern.

“You make it sound like something . . . normal.”

“Well. It’s common, anyway,” she said, reasonably. “At least right now. The past fifteen years people have seen a lot of terrible things.”

“I. . .” He wanted to say it. Just once, out loud. To her. “When the blood mages took over Kinloch Hold, their demons wanted to possess Templar bodies as well as mages. We were . . . some of us were taken up, tortured, we were offered whatever we wanted if we would just let them have us. Forsake our vows. And what they offered me was . . . was you. Not you, really, but a life lived in my mind where I had you. They gave me visions of . . . peaceful slow mornings, and children, and . . . and then when it became clear I would not live a false life they tried it from the other side. They showed me your death. Over and over, in terrible ways. And eventually all the scenarios were my own fault. I saw myself locking you in a hut with my sister and brothers, and setting it on fire. I saw myself force you. . . to. . . well. And strangle you. And then, as my comrades fell around me, either becoming possessed or dying of lyrium withdrawal, it all became much worse. Through it all I knew. If I agreed to their terms I could stop it all.”

“Cullen that’s. .. terrible.” Her voice was soft. Heavy with the terrible gift of revelation he’d just given her.

“The demons could have chosen anything else and it would have been just as terrible,” he admitted. “It still would have been torture to see my family hurt, or to imagine myself killing the children in the Tower. But I think it amused the blood mages to focus on you. Because you were once one of them, perhaps.”

“Not one of them.”

“One of their fellow apprentices. Fellow mages. I don’t mean. . . . you would not stoop to blood magic,” he said. For some reason that simple assurance made her shift, uncomfortably, her gaze dropping to the ground. “Or. . . would you?”

“Cullen . . . I would never hurt you,” she said. He tilted his head, staring, his balance and inner equilibrium sliding away.

“But you wouldn’t practice blood magic,” he insisted. His blood pounded in his ears.

“Not the way you mean. I would never use magic to influence the mind of another person, or try to take someone’s free will,” she said. She would not look at him. “And I would not sacrifice anyone. Not through blood magic. Though I don’t truly think sending soldiers into battle is much different. . . but no. I would not use any unwilling person’s blood to cast any ritual. I could not cross that line and still be myself.”

“You. . .” If she would not say more than that, it meant she did use blood magic. His Amell, a blood mage.

He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t breathe. He needed air. He was already outside.

“Forgive me,” he managed, past the burning lump in his throat. “I need . . . to think.”

He fled, into the shadows of the battlements. Where the wind could scour his lungs clean and his mind clear. Where he could be alone.


	9. Storytime with Hurlocks

Ivy could sense the darkspawn from as far away as the Inquisition camp near Valeska’s Watch. They had come to the right place. Cullen’s advice was good.

Which was as irritating as it was fortunate, after he essentially ran away from her. She didn’t know what she could have expected, but she had hoped for some basic acceptance. Her fellow Wardens never cared what kind of magic she used, they saw she was a good person and so they trusted her. But the Wardens were an incredibly pragmatic order. Maybe it was too much to expect anyone else to feel the same way.

She could only hope that no one recoiled in fear and loathing from her cure for the Calling. That wasn’t the kind of famous she wanted her spell to be.

She gathered all the troops that the somewhat overzealous Inquisitor insisted on sending with her. They all stood in front of Dagna’s cages, waiting for her word. The darkspawn were close, but they would not leave the shadows in any great number. She had time to give everyone one last reminder of what they were doing here.

“Valeska’s Watch may be overrun with darkspawn,” she said, knowing damn well that it was entirely overrun. “And quarters may be tight. So we’ll need to take no more than ten with us, and the rest should stay here.”

Lavellan himself stood at the front of his troops, all fifty or so of them. He was willowy, a lean figure cut from something more solid than the rest of the world seemed to be. He scratched his narrow chin thoughtfully. The rest of the soldiers waited, watching him. She might be in charge of this mission but there was no question who the men were following.

Dorian, Varric, and Cullen himself stood among the troops. She knew what Dorian was doing there, the man would spend every second with Lavellan if he could. And Varric, he was probably here for the story. She liked that. If he wrote something about her exploits like the Tale of the Champion, she’d have all the exposure she needed to make sure her cure didn’t get lost.

But she had no idea what Cullen was doing here. Unless he came to protect his troops from her. And her “blood magic.”

“I guess we’ll take—ten total? – so that’s me, Dorian, Varric, you,” Lavellan said, gesturing at Ivy, “Bartolis, Fernan, Lee, Cannon, Nelson, and the Commander.”

No one blinked at that. Ivy frowned at Cullen, who gave her nothing but a pleasantly blank expression in return. The man was all but a beaurocrat now. Surely Levellan hadn’t meant to include him.

“Darkspawn are fierce foes. Each and every man we take with us must be among your most seasoned, capable fighters,” Ivy reminded him. Varric started to laugh, but he converted it into a cough and hid his face behind his hand. Dorian’s eyes positively twinkled, glancing from her to the Commander. Whose neck was beginning to flush. They all took her meaning. But Lavellan merely shrugged, as if bored.

“They’re not as bad as demons, believe me,” he said. Possibly forgetting who he was speaking to. But she let it slide. “Anyway. Special instructions? Cages?”

“Right. We have three cages. We need to get three living darkspawn into them. That’s going to be a task best left primarily to myself and Dorian,” she said, nodding. The other mage gave a flourishing bow. “Darkspawn cannot be wounded in such a way that they stop fighting. They are either dead or a danger. They cannot be knocked unconscious, stunned, or otherwise incapacitated unless they are frozen. So we will handle that. The rest of you, give us the room to work and keep the bastards off us.”

“Oh, sure, easy. Simple,” Varric muttered. At least he was taking it seriously.

“Right,” Cullen muttered. He turned to his men. “LeClark, Childer, help haul these cages down to the entrance. The rest of you, take up position around the entrance to Valeska’s Watch. If any darkspawn escape the doors, you must ensure they do not live to wreak havoc. Let’s move.”

She should have thought of that. Scowling, just slightly, she turned to lead her borrowed troops through the little valley and into the old Watch. Varric caught up with her.

“Curly’s fine. Tougher than he looks,” Varric assured her. She sighed. The dwarf was far too perceptive. Worse, Cullen was only a few feet away. And he could probably hear everything they said.

“Thank you, Varric,” she said. He grinned, but he didn’t say anything else.

Valeska’s Watch was more a fort opportunistically set up where the darkspawn crawled from their holes than a purposefully placed encampment. It was dark, so she lit the torches along the walls with a little burst of mana. Well worth the magical expenditure. The first room was empty, save for papers and relics she’d be happy to sort through after their task was done. But she could sense the darkspawn on the other side of the heavy wooden door at the end of the room. And she knew they could sense her.

“Be ready,” she said. She readied an aura of healing magic, just as Wynne used to show her. “And make sure you don’t swallow any of their blood. Or let it get into a cut.”

“No walking bombs, got it, could have mentioned before,” Dorian muttered behind her. But battle sung in her blood, and now was not the time for words.

She was first through the door. A burst of fire flattened the darkspawn waiting, let her get in the first blow. She froze the Hurlock closest to her, and then she was off. The Inquisition’s men poured through behind her.

The darkspawn shone bright as beacons all around her, and she could place each one. They came for her, all but ignoring the other soldiers. Fine by her—she got two more with a cone of cold, and used the staff techniques Dorian had shown her to good effect on a third.

The closest darkspawn behind her went down in a blur of motion. She turned, surprised—she had just been about to deal with it – and saw Cullen knocking the damnable thing about with his shield. Just as Alistair used to do.

Credit where it’s due, Templars are always very good with their shields.

His non-lethal bludgeoning gave her time to ready another ice spell, so she froze that one as well.

And then, it was over.

Seven or eight darkspawn lived in their icy prisons. She used force magic to move them closer together, and refreshed the spell holding them in place with a cone of cold. Dorian, clearly deciding that she had this well in hand, moved to the most obvious crevice to deeper caverns and used his magic to shove rocks over the opening.

Which was thoughtful, but which would ultimately prove ineffective. She’d have some Wardens come back to install proper gates later.

“Quick and easy,” Cullen said, with a smug smirk. “I trust my men have proven they’re properly seasoned?”

“They aren’t appetizers, Commander,” Dorian interjected. No one laughed but Lavellan. Typical.

“You all did very well,” Ivy commended them. One or two of the soldiers seemed to take heart from that. But it was different than it was with her Wardens – these men saw her as a celebrity, not their commander.

It was strange how much she missed her people. Considering she spent most of her time travelling alone.

It took some finagling to transport the frozen darkspawn into the cages. She chose two hurlocks and one genlock, for genetic variety. Lavellan had his men shatter the extras. Then, back at camp, to her very great surprise, the men immediately began taking off their armor and washing themselves with melted, steaming snow warmed over several fires.

All nine of the men she took into Valeska’s Watch seemed to find nothing odd about stripping down to their skin in the cold and washing themselves. She tried not to stare. But. . . she couldn’t stop herself.

Varric, naturally, noticed her scrutiny first.

“Aren’t you going to clean the darkspawn blood off? Just because you’re immune to the Blight, doesn’t mean you should spread that stuff around,” the dwarf said. She tried, very hard, not to let her eyes drift lower than his impressive mop of chest hair.

“What. . . are you all doing? “ she asked, at last. None of the other soldiers seemed to think it was odd, either.

“I’ll not have my people getting the Blight,” Cullen said, voice firm and nearly haughty. He had kept his smalls, thank the Maker for the shreds of her sanity. He vigorously scrubbed his hair dislodging all traces of darkspawn blood. “All troops who encounter darkspawn must clean the blood off at the first opportunity, and clean their armor. We have some spare clothing. You should join us—Varric is right, you may not be in danger of getting sick, but you could spread the disease if you don’t wash up.”

What a. . . practical thing to think of. Despite the fact that it involved nine men mostly naked in the snow.

He was right, too, the armor shed by the men was already being put through a series of hot cauldrons, washing the blood and viscera off in stages. Their fellow troops, who had not seen action, were lowering the armor in with sticks.

“Right.” They really did have a point. But she’d be damned if she was going to strip down in front of all these strangers. “Tell you what. I’m going to go take care of that. . . over around that rise.”

Surely she could find some well of water or snow that might be good to heat up. And then she could just get in fully clothed, wash it all at once, and. . . die of hypothermia, drying off.

“Ah, if you please, ma’am, we actually have something set up for you. Commander had us put a barrel up over one of the little coal fires, to heat it, so you could wash with some privacy,” one of the soldiers said. Ivy glanced at Cullen. He wore that little smug smirk, but he didn’t say anything.

That was very thoughtful of him. But he was smug enough. So she didn’t say anything.

She jumped in the barrel, fully clothed, and made sure to immerse her hair fully multiple times. Then she accepted the spare clothes offered to her, and changed in one of the tents.

The only darkspawn nearby now were the ones in the cages. Warm and clean, and surrounded by trained soldiers, Ivy began to relax. She sat down by one of the fires and watched the men scurry about, finishing up various preparations and cleaning the rest of the bloodied armor. Whether it was the presence of their Inquisitor, or their Commander, or even her celebrity self, they were remarkably efficient.

Varric eventually joined her, sitting next to her on the broad log. They both stared at the fire in silence for a long time.

“I wish Leliana were here. I miss her stories,” Ivy said. Varric raised an eyebrow at her.

“Stories?”

“Yes. One of her stories or songs would really make this camp feel like home,” Ivy said, wistfully. To her surprise, the dwarf laughed.

“I’m sorry, her songs? You’ve actually heard her sing? Not just heard stories about it?” he said. Ivy blinked at him, unsure what he meant.

“You haven’t heard her sing?”

“I think once. Maybe? Everybody got into a big sing along right after Haven fell,” Varric admitted.

“Well, she used to sing all the time. Every night in camp. She told us stories about every place we visited, too,” Ivy said, smiling at the memory. “It was more useful than anything else could have been for me. I knew nothing about the world beyond the tower. Her stories helped me find my footing in the wider world.”

“No shit?” Varric breathed. Apparently the idea was truly bizarre. She got the impression she’d said something that focused Varric’s attention on her absolutely. “How did you and Red get together? Back in the old days.”

“Well. I met her in the tavern in Lothering. Some of Logain’s soldiers were there, looking for me. She . . . convinced me to let them live. After their attempt to kill me and bring my body back to Logain. There was a bounty out for Wardens in those days. He knew we knew what really happened,” Ivy said. Lavellan plopped down on her other side, unceremoniously.

“Weird to think about the famous Nightingale being against killing somebody,” he said. Several other soldiers had gathered near, listening. Cullen had taken a position on the other side of the fire, elbows on his knees, watching her.

Apparently, it was story time.

“My best friend grew up in Lothering,” Varric said. He shook his head, sadly. “Hell of a thing, what happened to that town.”

Ancient guilt pricked at her heart.

“We did what we could. Healing potions, traps—but there were only three of us when we arrived. Five when we left,” Ivy said. “And I’d been out of the tower less than a month. It was. . .”

She trailed off.

“Three? I thought it was just you and His Highness,” Varric said.

“No, Morrigan came out of the Wilds with us,” she said. His eyes widened.

“Empress Celine’s Morrigan? Same lady?” he said. Ivy sighed.

“Yes. Her mother, Flemeth—“

“THE Flemeth?”

“How about I start at the beginning?” Ivy offered. One of the soldiers whose name she had not yet learned gave a little enthusiastic jump, nodding his head frantically.

She’d told the story before. People wanted to know how the Hero of Ferelden began, how she came to accomplish everything she’d done. But usually she was telling the story to her fellow Wardens.

“But if I’m going to be playing bard all night, I’ll need something to drink,” she said. Almost instantly a mug of hot mulled ale was pressed into her hands. She gave Cullen the smile that people give parents of particularly well-behaved children—he trained his men well. “Now. I was raised in Kinloch Hold on the shores of Lake Calenhad from the age of seven. It was my home, and the only one I really remembered.”

“The Commander came from Kinloch Hold,” one of the soldiers blurted out. Cullen winced, as if he had hoped no one would remember he was a part of her story. She smirked.

“Indeed. And we were _friends_,” she said, with emphasis. He didn’t flinch at that, at least. “He was always on duty when I was in the library late at night, and we talked about all sorts of things. We were such good friends, in fact, that when I did my Harrowing Gregior made Cullen the headsman. If I had not passed my test, he would have been forced to kill me.”

“Wait. He was specifically assigned to maybe kill you _because_ you were friends?” Varric asked. One side of his mouth screwed up skeptically. She had to laugh. It never ceased to amaze her how little people knew about the inner workings of the old Circles, even now. Even after the war.

“Greigor wanted to be certain that his Templar was not compromised,” she said, watching Cullen carefully out of the corner of her eye. He seemed to be very still, to her, purposefully not reacting. But he did not contradict her.

“The Templars do not play around,” Varric mumbled, glancing from her to Cullen. Despite Cullen’s best efforts, a red flush was creeping up his face.

“Indeed not. But I had other friends in the Tower—many, in fact, though mostly they were other apprentices—and one of them, Jowan, came to me the day after my Harrowing asking for my help,” she said. She told the story of Jowan and Lily’s poor doomed romance, and her part in it. She spared no detail of Jowan’s blood magic. And the fact that he only unleashed it when he believed the woman he loved was in real danger.

Not that it made their story any less sad.

She told them about Duncan. It was important that Duncan live on in stories, in the minds of others- especially since she and Alistair were the only living souls who definitely remembered him. She talked about her first meeting with the current King of Ferelden, and even at this late date his antics got a laugh. They hung on every word about poor dead Caillan and the Battle of Ostagar. The sun had set, and her mug refilled several times, by the time she told them of the Dalish and the werewolves, the walking dead of Redcliff, and all her companions. She was careful to leave out Leliana’s religious visions. Leli wouldn’t thank her for spreading that sort of thing about now that she was going to be Divine.

She glossed, a bit, over the horrors of the tower. And she originally was going to leave Cullen out of it entirely. But, observant and deeply curious, one of the men asked her if she knew how their Commander had survived.

She stared at him across the fire. These were his men. He shared blood and sweat with them. He trained them. They had to look up to him. What did they already know?

She remembered the broken, tortured boy he was at the top of that tower, just outside the Harrowing Chamber. If it were her men, and her ancient wounds, she would not want them to be told.

“Ivy saved me, that’s how,” Cullen said, interrupting the silence. He leaned back, straightening his spine as if he were remembering the feel of plate mail holding him rigid. “Uldred’s blood mages took several of us hostage. I managed to survive until Ivy and her compatriots reached the tower.”

“Did you know she’d come? Since you two had been friends,” Varric asked. Ivy tilted her head, waiting for Cullen’s response. She’d never thought to ask him that. And given his confessions of the other night, she wouldn’t ask now—his answer could be anything. Something bittersweet, or full of terror.

“As far as we knew, no one was coming. I hoped that my fellow Templars might annul the tower, but in that event they likely would have killed me too for fear that I was possessed. Death would, of course, have been preferable to possession,” Cullen said. He sounded almost urbane. Like the man who’d panicked in her bedroom the other night didn’t even exist.

“Right. So, you saved Curly here and everyone who was left alive in the tower, except the bad guys, and then what? What happened with the Arlessa and Connor?” Varric asked, with half an eye on Cullen. Maybe he knew the subject was sensitive. Or maybe he just wanted to know about the Arlessa’s fate.

“Well, after we saved the Circle we had mages and lyrium enough to enter the Fade,” Ivy said, “so there was no need to sacrifice the Arlessa in order to attempt to save Connor. I went into the Fade myself, and battled the demon there—a demon of Desire, it was, fueled by Connor’s deep longing to see his father safe. In the end, I was able to beat her. It. Whichever. And the boy woke up, safe and sound and sane.”

“And his father?”

“The Arl had to be saved by other means. And without the demon keeping him alive, it seemed his condition grew worse every day. So, we had a ticking clock to find a solution. We needed Arl Eamon to call the Landsmeet in defiance of Logain—letting him die was never an option.” Ivy drank the dregs of her mug of ale. She felt fuzzy, a little too warm, and just shy of sick. It was probably time to stop drinking. Which meant it was also probably time to stop telling this story. “But it’s late. And that’s a tale for another time.”

A round of half-voiced protests went up, but she waved them off with a grin. “If you’re very good, I will tell you a piece of the story every night we’re camping until we get back to Skyhold,” she said.

“If we’re good. As though we were children,” Dorian scoffed. She rose to her feet, slowly, stretching and favoring him with a canine grin.

“Aren’t you?” she teased.

“Not all of us,” Cullen said, softly. A few of the men hooted at that. She felt a blush rising in her cheeks. Damn the ale, anyway.

“Yes, well. Goodnight,” she said, awkwardly, and favored them all with an extremely ungraceful half bow. Then she fled to her tent.

True to her word, she told the men a piece of the story every day until they reached Skyhold. They seemed to set up camp fairly early, for some reason, but she didn’t truly mind. She was all the way up to her adventures after Amaranthine on the final night they were camping. By that time, she knew each of the men who travelled with her by name. And while they rode, Varric told her little stories of his own—about Kirkwall, about her cousin Hawke, about the Inquisition.

A lot of his stories seemed to involve Cullen.

Who was not, apparently, talking to her.

But she knew he was watching her. Just like he used to in the Tower. When she was hungry, some soldier always seemed to appear with a bit of bread and meat. When she was tired, rests seemed to always be called. And every night, when they set up camp there was a roaring fire with a comfortable log set up near it, covered in a blanket, for her to sit on. And a clean mug to fill with ale. And a clean, aired-out tent for her to enjoy in solitary slumber.

She had absolutely no illusions that those things simply happened. She’d commanded too many to imagine that all that quiet consideration was a coincidence.

All in all, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this comfortable camping. Despite the fact that they were carting along three grunting, howling darkspawn in cages.

She concluded her final story with the somewhat uneventful tale of her first journey to Weisshaupt, and then told the men she was quite done talking for the night. She simply sat on her log, drinking, wrapped in a thick blanket and watching the fire. And the men themselves. Without her telling stories, they broke up into groups and pursued their own interests in the fading light. Some practiced their swordplay, with proud glances at their Inquisitor and Commander. Lavellan slipped off into the woods, and after a short time, Dorian slipped off too. No one commented.

Varric kept her company until some of the men decided to practice throwing axes, and they were doing it wrong. He hauled up onto his feet and started lecturing them on the finer points of throwing axes. Which he knew, it turned out, not from combat situations but from being in taverns with his buddy Hawke. Apparently they made a game of it.

She watched Cullen stalk among his men for a while. He did not join the ax throwers, though he had suggestions for them. Loud suggestions. Apparently throwing an ax is more about finesse than force. Who knew?

He glanced at her without meeting her eye, and then stomped his heavy leather boots out into the surrounding forest. No doubt going to check on a scout. Or get more firewood. Or meticulously brush out that ridiculous feathery cloak.

Hell with it. She drained her ale in one long swallow, and stood. She needed to talk to him, and now was as good a time as any. Better to do it here, out in the forest. Before they reached Skyhold. And there were not many miles left between here and the fortress.

She followed him, weaving only slightly. She kept her blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak. Snow dusted the mountain passes, making it very clear where men had passed and where they had not. She found him at the edge of a brush thicket, skirting its edge on the way to wherever it was he meant to go.

“Oi, Cullen,” she said, from a sufficient distance to avoid getting thwacked in whatever martial reflexes he might still have. He whirled to face her, eyes wide. She grinned, and wiggled her fingers in a cheeky little wave. After an uncertain heartbeat, he seemed to relax.

“You walk very quietly,” he said, sheepish. His hand rose to rub the back of his neck, just like it used to when he was a flustered young Templar and she was a Circle Mage. “Thank you for warning me.”

“Anything for a fellow veteran of the Blight,” she said, grandly. And how much of his constant vigilance was simple battle wariness? Some people live the past over and over, trapped in the torments they survived. Cullen was clearly one of them- he had said as much – but it was impossible to know the extent of the harm. “Speaking of. Thank you for taking such good care of me on this trip.”

“Taking care of you?”

“All the rest breaks and extra food and such. I am now quite spoiled. If ever you want to leave the Inquisition, you can be my quartermaster anytime,” she said. He smiled, a little half curve of his lips. She had a terrible, drunken urge to kiss that curve. But that was what got them in this awkward mess, wasn’t it?

“Of course,” he said, his voice going low. He cleared his throat. “It was the least I could do. Is that. . . is that why you came out here after me?”

“I wanted to talk to you. Alone. About the other night.”

“Oh.” He glanced around as if the trees themselves might have ears. “Surely we don’t have to—“

“We do. I need to talk to you. About blood magic.” On second thought, this was all a terrible idea. She was too drunk for this. Her words seemed clumsy even in her own thoughts, much less when she heard herself say them. “I mean, about me and blood magic. And you. I – I’m sorry, Cullen, I know you’d rather not talk to me—“

“I assumed _you_ wouldn’t want to talk to _me_,” he cut across her babble, his voice hoarse and intense. “Not after the spectacle I made of myself.”

“You didn’t make a spectacle of yourself, you ran away,” she said. “Again.”

“I—again?” he said, sounding perplexed. He had to remember. He couldn’t have forgotten.

“Back in the Tower?” she prompted. He did not look as though understanding was dawning. “I asked if you wanted to go talk alone, and I thought maybe we’d take all of our flirting and all those late-night heart-to-heart talks and turn it into something real, and you literally ran—“

“You were serious?” Cullen sputtered. He inhaled sharply, as if about to shout something, but then he only let his breath out with a hiss and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of _course_ you were. Maker’s breath.”

“It’s all right, I just, I thought that things would be different now that—“

“Things are different. Blood and damnation, I didn’t run from you because I thought—Ivy, if Gregoir had seen you propositioning me you could have been made Tranquil,” Cullen said. “I’m never going to let that happen. We talked about this the first day you came to Skyhold.”

“Irving wouldn’t have-“

“Irving ran a fairly lax Circle, and look what that brought him. What it brought us all,” Cullen snapped. He rubbed his face with his hands. “Not that I wish he had been more strict. . . well, I do. Just not about that. Though you know as well as I that his patience for assignations of that nature was very selective. And even had Irving not done something about it, Greigor would have. At the least I would have been transferred away. And never . . . never seen you again.”

_Oh_.

She felt as though she had taken a blow to her chest. It was hard to even catch her breath.

“Cullen. . .” She took a step forward, then another. “You really thought about this.”

“There was a period of time in my life when I thought of little else,” he said, his voice hoarse and soft again. Just hearing him sound like that made her lower belly clench, even through the drunken buzzing of her blood. “It is . . . strange, now, how being near you reminds me so much of those days. I hadn’t thought about them in years.”

“I didn’t, either,” she admitted. He was within arm’s reach now. But she did not close the gap. She had to remember why she came out to find him. “It often seems like nothing that happened before the Blight was real.”

In so many ways, her life truly began with her Joining.

“Cullen I have to—“

“I know what you--“

They both laughed, and he waved at her to continue speaking. Which was just as well. She was getting sidetracked. Talking about romance when she should be talking about magic. That was a first for her.

“I understand why you ran off the other night. After what happened in the Circle—“ she began, but he cut her off.

“You forget I was stationed in Kirkwall,” he reminded her. “In my dreams- you’re right. I am a callow youth trapped in Kinloch Hold, watching you die a thousand different ways. But in my waking hours it’s not Uldred’s horrors I fear to see repeated. It’s what happened in Kirkwall. I dare say every man and woman who hails from that city fears the same.”

“Anders was wrong. But—“

“Any number of people can blow up a building. That terror is not confined to mages. But the blood magic, the abominations—the ordinary folk of Kirkwall stood no chance. Even as the Champion fought against us to prevent the Rite of Annulment, the streets crawled with abominations. The streets were full of corpses. And even though he had support, the Grand Enchanter chose to employ blood magic to become a monster. Any man may become a monster, of a kind, but when a mage’s will to be good fails they do not simply spit curses and wield knives. Their souls are prey to demons, and it takes only a moment’s weakness or fear to allow those demons free rein in our world.”

“Blood and fire, Cullen,” Ivy whispered. She felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “I thought you. . . I thought you’d changed your mind.”

“I have. But not because the danger is past,” His voice was too soft for his words. His eyes were beseeching, even though he was saying she was halfway to damned just by breathing. “I could not. . . the man I was, when I followed Knight Commander Meredith, that man did not protect the innocent or guard against abuses. I became a Templar to protect people. To give my life to the greater good. And it broke more than just me, the trying. For all our sins committed in the name of the Maker, I cannot say anyone was saved. Hawke did more to protect Kirkwall than I did and he spent most of his time drinking in a Lowtown tavern.”

“It sounds like you regret the path you chose,” Ivy said, picking her words carefully. She had come out here with an eye toward confessing, to tell him that she had studied blood magic during the Blight. But now she felt like she was the confessor herself.

“I regret that I did not question my superiors, that I did not act on my own conscience,” he said. He cleared his throat, and took a half step forward. As though he were just about to say, once again, that he would have struck her down at her Harrowing in one breath and then make eyes at her in the next. “If you had come to Kirkwall, seeking aid, I do not think I would have helped you. I would have despised myself for caring about you. The thought of seeing you and feeling only fear and disgust. . . it sickens me. But I think that is what would have happened.”

“And now?” She hardly knew what to say, or think.

“Now. . . I am trying to find the Maker’s will in all this pain and suffering. The Inquisitor gave me a new path forward. I must see where it leads. And for you, I. . . I have to ask, Ivy. Are you a blood mage?”

“I studied blood magic. During the Blight.” That was the plainest she could say it. The truth hung heavy between them, pulling all the air out of the shadowed forest.

“What did you do with it?” His voice was so soft it could hardly be heard at all.

“Mostly, I pulled magic out of my blood to kill darkspawn. I never sacrificed anyone else. I wouldn’t, couldn’t do that and still be me. But I would have done anything to end the Blight. Blood magic was just. . . one more tool.”

“Did you use it to influence the Landsmeet?”

He sounded so dire. And no wonder. She supposed it would make a great deal of sense.

“No. I didn’t have to. I would have, if I’d known how and it seemed needful. When I say I would have done anything, I mean anything. But I never even tried to use blood magic on the nobles. I was certain I’d be caught if I did, and then I would be rotting in some cell unable to do damn thing about the Archdemon.”

“That’s very. . . practical,” Cullen observed. It was hard to tell in the dim light but it seemed there might be a smile at the curve of his lips.

“I’m a very practical woman,” Ivy said. She sighed. “My unwillingness to sacrifice anyone else is part and parcel of why I have to be the one who tries the cure first. It’s. . . a kind of blood magic. In a sense. They wouldn’t call it that in Tevinter, or so Dorian assures me. But it does have to do with the blood.”

“Yes. Dorian mentioned that to me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, twisting his neck as if he were working out kinks. “Tell me what the cure entails.”

She was getting somewhere. If she could get him to see the benefit of her plan, if she could convince him it was not some forbidden knowledge to be destroyed, she might be able to convince other people too. Like the Gray Wardens at Weisshaupt.

“We have to remove the taint from our blood.” And bones. And everywhere else. But it would flow out with the blood cleanly enough. “The principle follows from the method used in blood magic to cull magicka from your own blood. It will look fairly spectacular, and more than a little disturbing, because the blood leaves the body and has to sort of funnel back in, leaving the taint behind in a receptacle that Dagna has . . . perfected. It was devised by a Warden smith a long time ago, but Dagna’s work has been invaluable.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“What principles of blood magic do you need to use?”

“It’s mostly. . .” She doubted he would truly understand. And she had neither the patience nor energy to give him a lecture on the ins and outs of magical cleansing at the moment. “No other school of magic deals in how the blood moves at all, really. Even healing is very hands-off, just sort of letting the energy of the Fade pour through you.”

“So it’s only blood magic because it has to do with your blood,” Cullen said, slowly. He shook his head. “Nothing you’ve suggested is half as outrageous as creating an alliance with the rebel mages, so you’ve yet to even top Lavellan, much less shock me.”

He had a point. But, “I thought this would be more personal for you.”

“It is.” His voice had softened again. He cleared his throat, and continued in a more level tone, “I’ll want to have Templars standing by, in case anything goes wrong. And I want to see the ritual for myself. But I won’t oppose you in this.”

“Thank you.” It seemed strange to thank him—she knew Morrigan would have said something cutting instead about him finally seeing reason, and she half wanted to do that herself. But she erred on the side of manners. Because he had, after all, kept a close and caring eye on her this whole trip. That was probably worth some kind words. He regarded her in solemn silence for a long moment.

“I have prayed, every night, for some kind of road out of this morass,” he said at last. Was she imagining it in the low light, or did he look almost unspeakably sad? She swayed, half drunk, and wished she knew what it was she wanted him to say.

“Did you find anything?”

“Not yet,” he admitted. “No matter what I feel for you, it seems we are always on opposing sides. Mage and Templar. Warden Commander and the man who brought down the walls of Adamant. Blood mage and. . . and me. When does it become too far a distance to breach? How many unforgiveable sins would we need to forget, between us, to be friends again?”

His words dropped heavy into her heart like rocks down a well. She took an uncertain step back, her mouth wobbling in something that felt dangerously close to a sob. She fought to freeze it into a smile.

“I. . .” No. There was nothing to say to that heavy litany.

He might be kind, again. He might be an ally. He might support rights for mages like herself and pray every night for her safe travels. But he still saw her as something other than human. Something less than safe.

She nodded, awkwardly, in farewell. And then she fled back along the snowy path to the fire.

She was so focused on returning to the light and noise of the camp that she did not notice Varric. He crouched in the shadows of an overgrown bush, a mis-thrown ax held all but forgotten in one hand.


	10. Like a Brother

Cullen’s prayers were little comfort. He wished he hadn’t said that to her. She wouldn’t look at him. She was pointedly cheerful, laughing with Varric and Dorian and even Lavellan, and not looking at him once.

He only asked her because he thought she might genuinely have an idea. He hadn’t meant to make things even more awkward.

He managed to get his men up and moving and organized without snapping too often. Not more than usual. And he tried to school his eyes to pay attention to what he was doing. He wasn’t some moonstruck calf. He should be perfectly capable of behaving normally whether Ivy wanted his company or not.

“Curly! You look positively grim. Are you picturing all the reports stacking up on your desk in your absence?” Varric asked, pulling his pony alongside Cullen’s horse. With great effort Cullen managed to keep himself from grimacing.

“Yes,” he said, shortly, because it was much easier than thinking up any other lie. Varric grinned sympathetically.

“I completely understand. I expect I’ll have a stack of correspondence waist high waiting for me as well. I’ve lingered with the Inquisition longer than I planned. I should have left a month ago. But who could resist the Hero of Fereldan?” Varric grinned. The bottom dropped out of Cullen’s stomach. Somehow the little dwarf knew. He could just tell. “Compelling woman, isn’t she?”

“Very,” Cullen bit out.

“I think I’ll postpone my responsibilities a while longer and write a book about her. Will you help me with that? You were friends back in the Tower, right?” Varric asked. Cullen silently counted to ten, attempting to regain equilibrium.

“Why not ask her directly?” he managed.

“Oh, I don’t think she’ll be around long enough. After she gets this cure up and running I imagine she’ll be off to Weisshaupt. Just like Hawke. Between the two of them they should have that place levelled within the year,” Varric joked. He kicked his pony into a slightly faster walk and favored Cullen with a lazy wave. “Think about it, okay?”

About what? About her leaving?

Because Varric was right. Of course he was. She wasn’t some Inquisition conscript. She was only going to be around for a short while.

Cullen was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t realize the gates to Skyhold were open until they were almost upon them. Or that several people were standing in the entryway, waiting for their approach.

“Alistair!” Ivy shrieked, and she was off like a shot. She flew into the arms of the tall, well-dressed man waiting beside Leliana. He folded her in with a grin.

The King of Fereldan, apparently.

What was the protocol for meeting the King of Fereldan on a bridge into one’s own fortress?

Lavellan trotted up on his red hart, and favored the king with a little half bow. His Highness didn’t seem offended—he said something, low voiced, and still smiling, that made Lavellan laugh. Cullen held up a hand to halt his men. Whether they were bowing or not they didn’t want to run the King over.

Ivy wrangled her way free from the King’s embrace to hug the stately brunette woman next to him. Cullen didn’t recognize her, but perhaps she was the King’s much praised fiance. Ivy had mentioned her by name, though he could not now remember it- some noble from Highever.

Leliana guided all those high and noble people back through the gate and into Skyhold’s courtyard. Leaving him to deal with the much more practical concerns like all of their soldiers and the captured darkspawn.

It never made him bitter before. It used to make him proud.

“Oh, to be greeted like that by a beautiful redhead. Such exuberance,” Dorian said, dryly. Cullen’s teeth clenched, painfully, on all the things he didn’t want to say out loud. “I hope one day to be worthy of a great hero flying off their horse into my arms.”

“Lavellan’s a great hero,” Varric offered. Maker’s breath, what were the two of them doing right behind him?

“He’s so much more reserved.”

Teeth gritted so hard it was a wonder sparks weren’t flying out his nostrils, Cullen gave the signal to move forward. He had important business to see to. The horses needed to be fed and watered and rested, and for that matter so did the men.

Once he was done with all the practical little details of returning their expedition to Skyhold, Cullen retreated to his office. Varric was right about the reports. So he closed all of his doors, and settled in to read them.

Except he couldn’t focus.

The door from the west battlements swung open, and a man entered without even knocking. He had painstakingly styled blonde hair and a rakish grin. Cullen was on his feet, lips curled in a snarl, halfway to barking a demand this stranger explain himself when he realized it was the King of Fereldan.

“Your Highness,” he croaked, managing to duck his head and clasp his fist over his heart like a proper Fereldan-born warrior, instead of snapping at the king. But the man just grinned and waved him down, hand flopping foppishly.

“Now now, no need for all that,” the king said. He closed the door behind him. “Let’s just talk, one ex-Templar to another. Call me Alistair.”

“Ah, yes. Sire. Alistair,” Cullen said. He gestured toward the chair in front of his desk, inviting the king to sit, but his gesture was ignored. Instead Alistair puttered around to his practice dummy, running his hand over the knife holes.

“Good throw, eh? Never got the hang of throwing knives myself. Always preferred close quarters,” Alistair said. Cullen stayed on his feet, stiffly, unsure if it would be poor manners to sit in the king’s presence. “I must say, you have done rather well for yourself. Considering.”

“Sire?”

“Oh, you don’t remember? We met once before. I quite forgot myself until Ivy reminded me. It’s hard to imagine the young man I saw in the Tower becoming the Commander of a force of any size. But then, it’s hard to picture me as a king. Everyone says so,” Alistair grinned. Cullen felt his cheeks heat up, his guts rebel- why bring up the Tower?

“Did you know I had a bit of a crush on Ivy back in those days?” Alistair continued.

“Uh—“

“I picked her a rose in Lothering. Probably the last flower to bloom in that whole damned city. Beautiful, too, as red as her hair. I gave it to her with the very best speech I could come up with at twenty which, believe me, was not as bad as you might think. But she turned me down. She said she already had feelings for someone else. Someone she planned to ask to join us, when we went to the Circle to ask for their help.”

Wait, what?

Couldn’t mean him. He would have known. She would have said.

“It was hard to watch her going through the Tower, room by room, finding the bodies of her friends and worse. It wasn’t until after we left that she admitted you were the one she had meant. She was glad you lived,” Alistair continued, his voice diffident and unreasonably casual. Cullen felt like every word landed hard as a blow to his solar plexus. His ears were roaring with the sound of his own blood. But the king just kept talking, blithely. “But of course there could be no question of asking you to join us after the things you said. Your hatred of mages quite blinded you.”

_Holy Maker’s Breath and Blood._

“In the end I guess I’m grateful.” Alistair finally ceased puttering. He leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed over his chest, a shit-eating little smirk playing about his lips. “At the time I felt quite sorry for myself- there’s nothing like the prospect of imminent death to turn unrequited love into a tragedy. But if things hadn’t gone the way they did, I would never have met my beloved Ellie. Or I would have, and had to leave Ivy to be with her, and I would have lost my best friend.”

“I. . . yes, Sire.”

“She’s better than a sister to me, now, you know,” Alistair said. He leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I trust her judgment completely. In fact, if she were to say something like ‘arrest this cad, he’s a traitor to Fereldan’ I would probably just lock the man up. No trial. No questions. Just, poof, put him in a cold dark cell for life.”

“Are you. . . do you have a traitor in mind?” Cullen asked, trying desperately to follow the thread of this conversation. Alistair’s grin widened, and he shoved off the wall with his shoulders.

“No, she hasn’t said anything like that to me. But it wouldn’t have to be treason. Could be anything, really, that the Hero of Fereldan says is bad enough to warrant an arrest. I wouldn’t even question it. No matter who the fellow was or who, hypothetically, he worked for.”

_I think the King is threatening me._

“I understand, Sire,” Cullen said, stiffly. Alistair waved off the honorific.

“Alistair, remember? Call me Alistair. One ex-Templar to another. We were raised the same, you and I, in a lot of ways. Raised to be gentlemen. Particularly in the presence of a lady,” Alistair said. He sauntered toward the door. “Boring, that. All the speeches about honor and responsibility. But now that I’ve met my Ellie, I know I owe it to her to live every day like the kind of man the Chantry sisters wanted me to be. She deserves an honorable, honest man. Someone who puts her needs above his own. I’m sure you understand.”

“Yes?”

“Good.” Alistair looked downright smug now. He opened the door, leaning against it to look back at Cullen. “Anyway, got to run. So good to chat and all that, et cetera.”

And with that, the king was gone.

Cullen stood, staring at the open door, for a long, long time.

Finally, he managed to drag his feet over to the door and shut it against the gathering storm. Rain threatened to fall, hard, and the clouds gathering looked like night come early. It was a good thing his roof was enchanted. By Ivy. Her spell was invaluable-

Rain cascaded down the opening for his ladder, unimpeded by roof or enchantment.

Her spell must have worn off.

And now he was soaked.

Cullen climbed the slick, wet rungs of his ladder and made his way across his room. With brief, mechanical jerks he stripped out of his wet clothes and cared for his armor. In a fresh tunic and trousers, he found himself sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees.

Rain drummed the roof, the floor.

Ivy wanted him to come with her. To save Fereldan.

She had feelings for him.

He remembered the little paintings that circulated of the new king just after his coronation. Handsome and young and strong, the hero of the hour, second only to her. Resplendent in his golden armor. People said he was a mighty warrior, that he cut down Teryn Logain in a fair duel and cut a swath through the undead at Redcliff. He and Ivy were travelling companions, bound together on a quest that could not be discarded.

That was the measure of the man who brought Ivy a rose and asked for her affection. And she said no.

Because. . . of him?

Cullen had brought her no flowers. He’d burnt every ridiculous love letter he ever wrote long before anyone could lay eyes on it. She had no reason to even believe he cared for her, when they were young.

And still. And yet.

Cullen’s heart pounded in his chest.

His feet found their way down the ladder. Across the floor, out the door, across the walkway—rain pelted his head and shoulders, and he didn’t care a bit.

_I have to see Ivy._

He stalked through the great hall, ignoring the startled looks from the traders huddled there, and out the door on the far side. Up the stairs. And to her door, but—

No answer to his knock.

“Curly?”

Cullen closed his eyes and tried to breathe, the pounding of his heart echoing the pounding of the rain on the overhanging roof.

“I think the Warden is with Leliana and the king and that magical advisor. Something about the good old days.” It was Varric, of course it was, approaching him with all the caution due a wild beast.

“They even kicked out the King’s fiance, she’s holed up with Ruffles drinking some incredibly expensive wine. So I doubt they’re open to the idea of more company.” Varric just continued talking when he didn’t say anything. Cullen gulped air, trying to force his lungs to work around the frantic beating of his heart.

“Why don’t you come down to the tavern with me?” Varric said. And Cullen nodded, because what else was he going to do? Ivy wasn’t here. He couldn’t think straight. Had to see her. Couldn’t see her. So he followed Varric down the stairs and across the rainy courtyard.

The tavern was packed. All the men they’d taken with them, all the King’s men, they were drinking and singing raucous tavern songs. No one paid him much attention. He realized, belatedly, that he was only wearing his shirt and trousers. His soaked shirt. No wonder no one was reacting to his presence- they’d have to actually look at his face to know it was him. And these troops were all too drunk to care about that.

Varric led him to a corner where the Iron Bull was holding court among his Chargers. The qunari grinned openly at them both, and gestured for them to join in. A tankard was pressed into Cullen’s hands. He drank it, blindly.

“Good to see you cutting loose, Cullen,” the Iron Bull said. He slapped Cullen on the back, hard enough to shake him. “Was it the darkspawn, or--?”

“He was outside the Warden’s room,” Varric explained. And apparently that scant intelligence was plenty for the Ben Hassrath spy.

“Ah. My condolences.” And there was that slap again, this time faintly softer, as if that were conciliatory. “Drink up. The Inquisitor ordered the stores opened and word is that half the supplies the King’s men brought came in casks.”

“So what’s the Commander—“ one of the Chargers asked, but a gesture from the Iron Bull silenced him.

Maker’s breath, they all knew. Every one of them He didn’t know how, and he didn’t know how much, but they all knew. He didn’t even know what to call what was going on between him and Ivy. How did they all know about it?

“Nothing’s happening between me and the Grey Warden,” he said, answering the question no one at all had asked. Several of the Chargers raised their eyebrows, glancing from him to the Iron Bull uncertainly.

If he lived to be a hundred, he never wanted to see another glance as pitying as the one the Iron Bull gave him.

“_That_ is obvious,” was all the spy said.

“Come on. I’m trying to perform a public service here,” Varric protested. Cullen’s back got slapped again, this time much further down. “Maybe we can get a game of dice going.”

“No dice,” Cullen protested. One of the Chargers leaned forward and leered, clearly in the spirit of comradery.

“Come on, Commander. You know what they say. Lucky in cards, unlucky in love? You might as well try it,” the Charger said. Cullen swallowed a groan, and the rest of his ale. Varric passed him a refill.

“Looked like the King went up to see you,” the Iron Bull said. It was anybody’s guess whether he was trying to tactfully change the subject or dig for more information. Or both. “Anything fun we should know about? Reports of darkspawn, reports of dragons—“

“Leave off with the dragons, Chief!” one of the Chargers groaned.

“No. He wanted to talk about –“ Maker, how was he supposed to say it? Love? Ivy? “He was warning me.”

“Warning you?” Now he had the Iron Bull’s full attention. A boon he never wanted to gain.

“About. . .” Cullen sighed. He might as well say the truth. If he tried to dance around it, the things they’d guess would all be much worse. “He came to tell me that if Ivy gives the word, he’d lock me in prison without a second thought.”

“Ah.” The Iron Bull relaxed back, but his eyes stayed on Cullen’s face. “That’s worth a few pints, at least. Sounds like your king doesn’t like you much.”

“The real question is, why would he think he needed to step in to protect the Hero of Fereldan from the Commander?” one of the Chargers, Krem he’d heard the man called, asked. Cullen ignored him. Instead he drained the rest of his mug.

“Slow down, Curly, we don’t know how many casks the King brought with him,” Varric warned, but he was smiling. Cullen’s guts were in rebellion. But the ale was taking the edge of his panicked misery. He needed to see Ivy. Needed to ask her if it were true.

“Maybe he made an ungentlemanly suggestion to her,” another one of the Chargers said, answering Krem. Maker help him, they were going to _speculate_.

“Can’t see the Commander importuning a lady,” Krem objected. “Never has before.”

“Maybe she’s in love with him,” suggested another Charger, a Dalish elf with a very odd magic staff made to look like a bow. “And he’s mean to her because she’s a mage and he’s a Templar.”

Maker’s breath, what if he was?

What if that was why Ivy didn’t want to talk to him since their moment in the forest? What if she took all the things he said about mages personally?

Of course she did. Of course she would.

Cullen groaned and buried his head in his hands. The Chargers took his despairing gesture and ran with it, speculating like mad. But he couldn’t bring himself to care.

A heavy hand fell on his back and stayed there. When he finally raised his eyes to look, it was Varric. The dwarf regarded him with something between pity and sardonic amusement. He deserved worse.

“It’s noisy here. Let’s go upstairs,” Varric suggested. “There’s a nice balcony up there, where you can still hear the music. You can bring your ale.”

“Oh, this I have to see,” the Iron Bull muttered, non-sensically. Cullen let himself be guided up and away from the Chargers, who were now taking bets on various awful ways he might humiliate himself. He carried a full mug of ale with him. Where did they all keep coming from?

The three of them went up two flights of stairs. He knew this balcony, it held a door out onto the battlements. Varric led him over to the stairs near the door and sat down, easily, right on the steps.

Cullen shrugged, internally, and joined the dwarf on the steps. It was much more restful up here, the other men were right. He could almost hear himself think.

“Thank you,” he said, to both of them. “I . . . I am not sure what came over me.”

“I’m wondering about that myself,” Varric admitted. “You seem like a man having a revelation. I’m curious what kind.”

“What kind?”

“My men aren’t tactful, but they’re also not wrong,” the Iron Bull said. He shrugged his massive shoulders. “It’s obvious you’re in love with the Warden.”

Love. In love. _In love_.

Cullen’s heart stopped, the whole world stopped, suspended between one breath and the next. That was what it was. Not infatuation or lust or anything lesser. Had to be love, because why else would his whole soul feel like it was sundering when every conversation between them went so wrong? Had to be love to explain the years and years of nightmares, of aching, the way that he needed to protect her. Despite the fact that there was no one in the world, perhaps aside from Lavellan, who needed his protection less.

“But you might hate that,” the Iron Bull continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that he’d given voice to the most desperate truth of Cullen’s soul. “Her being a mage, and all. You know it’s pretty bad if even I can’t tell if you want her around or not.”

“What, you got special Ben Hassrath training on how to spot love trouble?” Varric asked.

“Of course.”

Cullen turned it over, over and over in his head. But it wasn’t his head that was making this call. And he knew, deep down, what he really wanted. What he’d been afraid all his life to want.

“The one thing he always wanted. But could never have.” Cole’s voice seemed to come out of the shadows themselves. Cullen jumped, nearly spilling his drink. But Varric and the Iron Bull seemed like they expected it. “It’s too late for the flowers now.”

“Flowers? You don’t get a woman like the Grey Warden flowers. I’d say those hurlocks out in the bailey are more her speed,” the Iron Bull mused. Varric snorted.

“She could use a better cloak, come to that. But if you—“

“No,” Cole cut across this speculation. “She would have smiled at the flowers. But now she knows you see her like poison, and they won’t help.”

“She’s not. . . poison.” Cullen’s protest sounded weak even in his own ears. “I never meant to. . . I only. . . Maker’s breath, I’ve given her every cause to doubt. . .”

“You can’t convince her when you aren’t sure yourself,” Cole informed him, apologetically. “You always end up telling her the truth, anyway.”

“Aww, come on, Cole, this isn’t like when that redheaded cook was mad at me. It’s not about learning from his mistakes or whatever. He needs proper advice,” the Iron Bull protested. Cole tilted his head at the qunari, his eyes glinting under the wide brim of his hat.

“To get advice you have to know what you want,” Cole said. Cullen set his ale down, gently. Then he buried his head in his hands.

“I should not have drunk so much so quickly.” The world seemed to be spinning. Were they trying to help him or drive him mad? He surely hadn’t done anything to earn either this much friendship or this much enmity, whichever it was.

“Come on, Curly, if you can’t think about your heart when you’re drunk you probably don’t have one.” Varric slapped his back again. What was it about back slapping that made it seem an appropriate gesture of affection? Cullen groaned into his hands. But Varric was right.

“What if. . . what if it doesn’t matter?” The ale and the hour and the shadows surely conspired to wring those words from his lips. “What if none of what I’ve ever stood for, or believed in, matters compared to . . . I cannot put one person above the whole world. Above the Maker, and everything else. And it is not—following her, being with her, it would not be like being in the Inquisition. The things she does, the things she is, she flouts every rule and principle I’ve ever. . .”

“Horse shit,” the Iron Bull grunted. Cullen’s head snapped up. He stared. The Iron Bull crossed his arms over his chest and glowered down at Cullen.

“You want to tell me about principles? Now that I’m Tal-fucking-Vashoth?” the Iron Bull’s voice rumbled in deeper disquiet than Cullen had ever previously heard. “You get to pick one or the other to care about. The people, or the principles. Not everybody gets luck enough to have both.”

The Iron Bull would know.

“They love you.” Cole’s voice was directed at the Iron Bull, now. The big spy sighed, and uncrossed his arms.

“I know, kid.”

“Sounds to me like you know what it is you want to do,” Varric said. For some reason, he was smiling. The same smile he wore when he presented Cassandra with that book. “You just can’t be a chickenshit about it and leave off making your move until it’s too late.”

Right.

Maker’s breath.

“If it sounds that way, why don’t you tell me what it is I want to do?” Cullen invited him, almost pleading.

“Are you kidding? I’m going to steal those lines you just said and use them in my next romance. If I ever write one.” Varric picked up his ale and handed it to him. “But if you really don’t know, have another drink. You’ll figure it out when you get to the bottom of one of these glasses.”

“I think if I have any more ale I’ll be ill.” Cullen swallowed, hard. Maybe it was too late. His insides were certainly rebelling.

“Never took you for soft, but I guess you’re not much of a drinker,” the Iron Bull grunted. He turned to Cole. “If Cullen’s going to sit this one out, maybe I ought to take the Warden out hunting. Cheer her up. Plenty of nice big bears to hit in the mountains around here.”

“Even though he calls her kadan?” Cole asked, tilting his head like an inquisitive puppy. Cullen must be more drunk than he thought. Nothing about this conversation was making sense.

“The Arishok can’t object to me cheering her up. That’s plain neighborly.” The Iron Bull smirked.

“If you’re trying to goad me. . .” Cullen tried, and failed, to think of an appropriate threat. “Don’t.”

“Who says this is about you? I’ve always had a weakness for redheads.” The Iron Bull’s smirk bloomed into an evil grin. For some reason, it made Varric laugh.

What would he do if Ivy started seeing the Iron Bull? Cullen mulled it over, picturing it. His queasiness returned in force. But he had no claim to her. No right to say anything at all.

Just this heat in his chest and a stolen kiss, and a decade of nightmares.

What if being with someone like the Iron Bull would make her happy?

He wanted her to be happy. Really. _Really_. Even if being happy meant having nothing to do with him ever again.

“That isn’t what she wants,” Cole cut in, as though he were reading Cullen’s thoughts. Which he probably was. Cullen scowled into his tankard. “She doesn’t think of it as being lonely, but she knows she is out of place in this world. If you told her she belonged she might believe you.”

“Hey, now, that’s something I can actually help with,” the Iron Bull offered, as though Cole’s odd turns of phrase were directed at him instead of Cullen. For all he knew they were, and he was reading into it.

The world was spinning just as much as his thoughts.

He tried to take a sip of his ale. To steady himself.

It was the wrong move.

He made it up the short stairs, out the door, into the pouring rain on the battlements before he was sick over the side of the wall.


	11. Darkspawn Demonstrations

Ivy sipped her tea slowly, staring out over the battlements. The air was cold and crisp, the wind perfect. With Leliana on one side and Morrigan on the other, she felt like she could take on the whole world. There was a peace to being near her old friends that she simply never felt without them. Alistair’s presence made it even better.

She wished she’d come to the Inquisition long ago.

“That overhang looks stable enough. It would provide some shelter, which we could supplement with a tent.” Morrigan gestured halfway down the mountain, to a spot far away from the road to Skyhold.

“Better to be close to the road, in case something goes wrong. We’ll want to be able to bring healers in a hurry.” Leliana gestured toward a flat spot, closer to the gates. “We have no shortage of tents.”

“Any tent will have to be burned after it is used. There will be no shortage of tainted blood in the cloth,” Morrigan pointed out. Ivy set her tea down.

“That decides it,” she said. “We can’t burn a rock shelter. We’ll set up on the flat spot and raze it after we’re done.”

“Tis a fair point, thinking on it,” Morrigan said, slowly. She shook her head as if to clear it. She stepped away from the wall, toward the door. “I’ll have the darkspawn and mages prepared.”

“And I’ll have our Commander set up a tent. And a bonfire,” Leliana added. She leaned in, conspiratorially. “I hear this morning’s drills were uncharacteristically short. Rumor has it our Commander spent most of the evening drinking in the tavern after Alistair spoke with him. Do you want me to find out what they talked about?”

“Honestly, no,” Ivy told her. She finished off her tea and prepared to follow Leliana down. “Today is no time for idle curiosity. Those boys will have to look after themselves.”

“I don’t engage in idle curiosity, Ivy,” Leliana admonished her. They fell into step together, walking down the stairs to the courtyard. Leliana’s arms went wide, gracefully encompassing the whole world. “My curiosity moves whole kingdoms.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” Ivy sighed. Her footsteps felt heavy, for some reason. She tried, very hard, not to think because this might be my last time walking down these stairs. “Today is for other things. I plan to move fast, Leli. Before all the worrywarts get going again and think of five thousand reasons I shouldn’t be the first to try this out. As soon as we’ve cleared the experiment with the darkspawn and the other mages have had a chance to reset, I’m doing this.”

Leliana’s steps slowed, and stopped. The old mirth that had been curling her lips more often lately disappeared entirely.

“Then . . . what I can say is, you know that I love you as dearly as I could ever love a sister,” Leliana said. Ivy hugged her, fiercely.

“Never liked all that old soldier stuff,” she said, into Leliana’s shoulder. After just a moment’s hesitation, Leliana hugged her back. “But I’ll be fine. Really.”

“Naturally.” Leliana was smiling again by the time she let go and continued down the stairs. “I doubt death itself could do much more than slow you down a little.”

It took some chivvying, but Ivy got everyone mobilized and out to that flat spot before the sun rose too high in the sky. The tent that Leliana got set up for them was large enough to accommodate ten or fifteen people, but had to have the flaps open to allow the extended audience to see inside. It was rendered little more than a roof.

The audience in question was even larger than she’d anticipated.

Lavellan was there, of course, and Alistair and his lady love, standing there all of them looking like they were ready to hack the caged darkspawn to little bits. Cullen stood next to Lavellan, his arms crossed over his armored chest and a pinched look on his face. There must have been some truth to the rumor Leliana repeated, because he looked much paler than usual. The Iron Bull, Varric, Fiona- and half of Skyhold along with them—spread out on the road to watch.

She’d had just one hurlock brought down in its cage, to forestall anyone saying that she should perform the ritual on all three in a row, just to be sure. Her assistants for this test, Dorian and Vivienne, stood ready.

When she did this on herself, hopefully later this very day, it would be Morrigan and Fiona. The former Gray Warden already came back from the Blight once herself, there could be no mage better suited.

When everything was ready, Ivy took a deep breath, and shared one last grimace with Morrigan. “I hate public speaking.”

But when she turned around to face her audience, she was all smiles.

“As you all know, this creature is a hurlock,” she said. “It carries the blight in its blood. Some of you may also know that Gray Wardens carry the blight in our blood.”

Alistair’s lip curled in a disbelieving smile. But what’s fame for if you can’t spill ancient secrets? Several of the people in the audience shifted, whispering to each other. But she wasn’t done. She ran through some of the basic facts of the Joining. Then she told everyone exactly what she would be doing. Removing the Blight from the hurlock’s blood- just as it would have to be removed from her blood, if she were to be free of the taint.

She did her best to make it clear that a Gray Warden isn’t like a darkspawn, but it’s always hard to say what people remember. What they believe. She would simply have to rely on the scribes to get it right. She’d set those wheels in motion already. Everything was set.

Her work would continue on even if she didn’t make it off this hillside.

And then, it was time. They drew their sigils, drew their will, and began.

The first thing that happened was the hurlock screamed. Not a battle cry, not a scream of anger, but a high-pitched wail of pain.

The second thing that happened was its skin opened up.

Like invisible knives were slicing at the creature, the skin of its arms and legs opened up. Blood floated out of it, dark and viscous. The hurlock fell to the ground, still screaming. Those floating globules of blood began to move, from one gaping wound to another, a ribbon of ichor- but something dark and horrible was being siphoned off every time. It seemed like shadow given form. And as it siphoned off away from the blood, it poured into the container Dagna created.

The hurlock was changing.

Its skin grew paler, rosier. But then something happened. Something terrible. The flesh of its hands and head began to flake, to disintegrate into dust. Bit by bit, it began to drift apart.

But it was still screaming. All the way until its mouth caved in, and its head crumbled into dust.

In the end all that was left in the cage was a pile of gray rock dust, and a rusty dagger. Dagna’s little blight trap glowed with malevolence.

The whole world seemed silent. Ivy stepped out, into that resounding silence. She flung her arms as wide as she could, a huge grin on her face.

“A resounding success!” she proclaimed, in her best booming voice. Behind her, she heard a snort, then a pair of hands clapping- probably Dorian. Confused, the crowd began to join in. Soon the whole audience was clapping wildly, and a few people even whooped.

Even Lavellan clapped, in his lacksadaisical way- one hip slung out, a lazy smile on his face. Alistair whooped several times- clapping furiously. No death would ever be too gruesome for a hurlock, not for her friend. Only one person on the front line of the crowd didn’t clap. Cullen stood with his arms still crossed, his face as pale as milk. He stared at her with his jaw set, his eyes burning.

“Let’s make sure some of that applause is saved for Dagna,” Ivy continued. She gestured broadly at the dwarven inventor. “Without her ingenuity, none of this would be possible. Thank you all so much!”

She bowed, and turned away, just like she was leading some kind of travelling show.

“Marvelous. I expect you’ll be wanting these tent flaps down?” Dorian asked, his brow raised. Ivy nodded. Her fellow mages began to work on the tent flaps, all together. “Don’t think it’s not obvious you want to hurry along and begin human testing, now that you’ve technically performed a test for my Inquisitor.”

She had, in fact, hoped it was not obvious.

“Is that what you call him? Really?” she teased, instead of a proper answer.

“You cannot do this.”

She turned to the speaker, knowing already it was Cullen’s voice, harsh and unhappy. He towered over her, jaw working, looking as miserable as she’d ever seen him. His eyes met hers, and they absolutely burned—he looked almost desperate.

“I am no hurlock,” she said, gently. “I will not turn into dust.”

“That creature just died in terrible pain. I’ve seen men go into shock and die from far less than that darkspawn just experienced,” Cullen said, harshly. His hands clenched at his arms so hard his knuckles were all white. “If you take this task on yourself you’ll die. And there will be no one to push for a viable cure to the Calling.”

“Cullen, please.” There was no arguing with the desperate, miserable look on his face. So she took pity on him. She lied. With a soft smile, she laid her hands over his, in a gesture of reassurance. “I promise, I’ll be fine. If you want to argue with someone about whether or not I should be allowed to try this on myself, you should talk to Alistair. He’s the one with the real power to say yea or nay.”

Cullen relaxed fractionally at her touch, his gaze softening. After a long moment, he seemed to draw a life-giving breath, and he stepped away. Out of her reach. Some things just never changed.

“I will talk to him directly,” Cullen promised. He scowled at everyone else in the tent. “None of you help her to harm herself. That is a direct order.”

With that, and a little swirl of his cape, he stalked off to find the king. Ivy rolled her eyes.

“I do not take orders from that man,” Morrigan noted, with her usual asperity.

“Neither do you,” Ivy said to Fiona, pointing at the older mage. “Let’s get to work. Sooner we get going, the less likely we are to be interrupted.”

|  ReplyForward  
---


	12. Guarded by Dragons

Cullen couldn't keep the scowl off his face. Just the idea, the very thought, of Ivy's skin opening up and her blood spiraling out into the sky- he knew he'd see it in his nightmares. Whether or not she went through with it.

"You! Gibbs!" he snarled. The man he was pointing at blanched, and came to a shaky kind of attention. They hadn't yet made it back to the gate of Skyhold. He tromped through the grass, fearing somewhat irrationally his stomping feet might break the pavement. "Where are we with the southern Wardens? Have any arrived?"

"I can answer that," Lavellan said, leaning back. Next to him, King Alistair raised a sardonic brow, turning to look at his fellow ex-Templar. That cool inquisitiveness just irritated Cullen more. They all knew what Ivy planned. They all heard that creature howling in pain. Shouldn't they all be as unhappy as him? Why wasn't anyone else panicking?

"No," Lavellan said, simply. He tilted his head, gesturing at someone behind Cullen. "Dorian, I take it things are . . . progressing?"

"Indeed, Amatus," Dorian said.

A terrible suspicion dropped into the pit of Cullen's stomach like a hot coal.

Beside Dorian, between them and the tent, the Iron Bull stood. Carrying a sheild and a short cudgel.

Weapons to subdue without killing.

"Andraste's nasty knickerweasels, you can't be serious," Alistair swore. His eyes narrowed at Lavellan, jaw clenching- "You can't have given her permission to just. . . start in. Right now. Did you?"

"Your highness," Lavellan smirked, shifting his weight as if to ready for a blow- "She's less under my command than under yours. I guessed. I didn't grant any kind of permission."

Cullen's feet seemed to be made of stone. His mind made of sludge. That couldn't be right. She wouldn't just. . . start in, risking her life, doing the one thing he'd ever asked her not to do. Not without saying goodbye. She wouldn't, would she? Without saying goodbye?

Alistair swore again, low and vicious, and shook off his retainers to stride back to the tent. When he reached the Iron Bull, the big qunari stepped in front of him. Alistair only paused for a moment, scowling.

"Really? You're going to hit me with your little stick?" he asked. The Iron Bull seemed to consider it for a moment.

"No. I guess I'm not," he admitted. Alistair stepped around him, unhindered.

That was when the screaming started.

High and deep and desperate. The sound of a soul being pulled apart. The sound that hurlock would have made if its voice was usually music. A scream that Cullen knew, the way he knew his heart was still beating, that he would hear again and again in his dreams for the rest of his life.

His feet came loose from the ground. His blood was fire. There was nothing he could do but run.

The Iron Bull stood between him and the tent, mouth moving, saying something, but Cullen didn't really care. The qunari rushed him, a classic sheild bash he wasn't quick enough to dodge. He felt it, reverberating through his bones, knocking him back.

But on the way up he remembered he had his sword.

The Iron Bull was quick, always, but not quite quick enough- Cullen's sword bit into the wooden cudgel, and he wrenched it from the Iron Bull's hand. The sheild came down, hard, against his shoulder, and his whole sword arm went numb- but he didn't drop anything.

She screamed again.

He didn't have time for this.

Shouts were going up at all quarters, and it seemed like the world was suddenly full of his own men- men he trained himself, men he knew, surrounding him with pale faces and wild eyes. Tangling him up. Keeping him from her.

He dug deep, down below all the years of doubt and rage and addiction, and he found an edge in his soul he hadn't seen since Kirkwall. Even without lyrium in his blood, it seemed, the old skills still heeded his call. If he was desperate enough.

Ruthlessly, he smote them-- all of them. The circle of men surrounding him, including the Iron Bull, fell back. It wasn't enough to injure them permanently. But it bought him a chance, a moment- to leap over them, to run for that tent.

A wall of fire went up right in front of him. A hand, rough and stronger than he would have believed, grabbed his sword arm. Alistair's eyes burned, his scowl fierce- and he was shouting something. Something that was probably important.

The flames stole the words. Something about "can't stop her now" and "ruin it" and "kill her" and he didn't even need to hear it. He could feel every one of her screams in his blood.

It was just a wall of flame. Not a mine. Not a bomb. He shook the king's hand off and jumped.

When he landed on the other side, he kept going down- down to the grass, to roll, to put out the cinders taking root in his cloak.

That was when the blast of ice took him.

Everything was cold. And still.

And he could still hear her screaming. Screaming while the air was stolen from his lungs and he froze, falling out of consciousness.

******************************************************

"I just want to see her."

"Go away. I've no time to babysit idiot Templars."

"It's been three days, Morrigan. You let the king in. Let me in."

"Him I'm used to. I'm perfectly serious, Commander, your presence is very distracting. I will have someone send for you when she's ready to be barked at by large, violent men. Now go away or I'll have someone freeze you again and this time they won't let you out to breathe."

"Morrigan--"

Ivy heard the door slam, and her old friend mutter curses all the way back to her bedside. Morrigan set down the pile of fresh, clean sheets that had been delivered, apparently, by the Commander himself. Ivy's lips twisted wryly.

"Problems? Does he want to know what's happened to the rest of the bedding they've sent?" she asked. Her voice was still raspy. A natural consequence of her body's return to normalcy- which apparently included quite a bit of vomiting, among far less pleasant things, and no small amount of "female trouble," as Morrigan put it. Since the spell was so new, and all the things coming out of her so gross, it was simpler to incinerate all the cloth she was currently using than to try and have a mage supervise its washing.

"I shouldn't be surprised, the man's a glorified quartermaster," Morrigan snapped. She busied herself mixing up a fresh batch of herbal tea, to replace the cool cup in Ivy's hands. "Drink that. You're in greatest danger from dehydration."

"This is my eigth cup and it's not yet midday," Ivy protested. Morrigan merely scowled at her. So, obediently, she drank it down. "When can I have solid food?"

"When I am convinced you will keep it in your body long enough to actually digest it," Morrigan snapped. Then she sighed, and sat down heavily. "I apologize- you may have solid food soon. Perhaps tonight. You know I have no love for Templars. I thought that one would push right past me again."

"Again?"

"Before you were awake. The first day. The room was quite crowded enough, with all of the mages and Alistair and Leliana pushing their way in. He was barely defrosted and he decided he just had to see for himself you were breathing. It took some very stern orders from a variety of political powers to get him back out of the room once his curiosity was satisfied."

Ivy felt a twinge of guilt. It was a bit underhanded to spring her experiment on everyone. It was the best way, she still was sure about that- but it was easy to imagine she'd caused a great deal of worry and pain.

Not that waiting would have been better for them- they would have had more time to worry.

"He's just worried."

"Obviously." Morrigan sniffed. "He can do that somewhere else. He knows you're alive- what more information does he think he'll glean from actually seeing you?"

Ivy let that one go. She simply sipped her cooling tea, and tried to read one of the herbal compendiums that Morrigan thought would be appropriate reading during her convalesence. She felt ill enough to be content to stay in bed all day- it was, in many ways, much like recovering from terrible food poisoning. Something Alistair had pointed out, in his sarcastic way, almost the moment she woke up-- this was what she got for drinking a weird mix of blood and lyrium given to her by a man she hardly knew.

**********************************************************************

Cullen stared at the door. His hands clenched into fists.

"Do not even consider it," Cassandra advised him. As she had so many times since the Incident. He wasn't sure if Lavellan had assigned her to watch him or if she had appointed herself his guardian, but Cassandra had dogged his steps ever since he woke up from the ice.

From the spell of Winter's Grasp that Dorian had to cast on him. To keep him from interrupting a mage's spell. After he attacked his own men and nearly got into a fistfight with the King of Fereldan.

And since which he had not truly slept.

"I wasn't planning on breaking down the door," he snapped at her. Cassandra was the one person he never worried about offending- she took his ill humor with the grace of a Tranquil. At the moment she merely raised an eyebrow at him.

"Weren't you?"

"I am quite calm, Cassandra," Cullen insisted. His tone belied his words, but she didn't tweak him about it. Instead she merely followed him across the battlements to his office. She had taken to practicing against her dummies in the corner while he worked, instead of haunting the courtyard.

Cullen stalked to his desk- for once mostly clear of reports, since he had plenty of time to sort through them while he wasn't sleeping. He poured himself a cup of strong tea from the pitcher he had begun keeping there. Cold, of course, because maintaining a hot teapot had proved something of a logistical challenge. And it didn't matter. He didn't much care what it tasted like. It cleared his head.

The first sip gave him the strength he needed to ignore the note.

It sat, quite innocently, on the edge of his desk. A three-word missive from Varric, folded and delivered by the simple expedient of laying it on his desk when he was away. He first noticed it the day of the Incident. After he got back from reassuring himself, with his own eyes and hands, that Ivy was alive.

He had been ignoring it ever since.

Cassandra settled in to her usual punishing rthym, turning a few practice dummies into matchsticks. He read letters. Old reports.

The note mocked him just as handily as that witch standing guard over Ivy.

_ I can help_, it said, as though Varric might have special secret knowledge of how to navigate this tangle.

He found himself staring at it. Reliving the moment he'd stood toe-to-toe with Morrigan, trying to peek past her. Only to be rebuffed. Morrigan couldn't be intimidated, sweet-talked, ordered, or otherwise compelled, it seemed.

He found himself standing up.

"Cullen?" Cassandra seemed to be checking in with him. He should just sit down. Pretend to read. But instead he picked up the note. It crumpled in his fist. His feet seemed to be taking him to the door.

Cassandra followed him. Of course.

He found Varric in the great hall, as usual, sitting at a table near the fire with a variety of letters and manuscripts spread out in front of him. The dwarf's scratching quill stopped when Cullen dropped the crumpled note in front of him.

"I am listening," Cullen said, his voice hoarse. A little smile grew on Varric's face.

"I take it you want to visit the Warden?" Varric asked.

"No." His voice sounded like a pile of bricks being pulled over, and he winced to hear it. He could hardly pretend to be in command of himself, and he knew that wouldn't reassure anyone in the wake of his violent meltdown at the scene of the Warden's spell. "But I need to see her. If I can’t see her with my own eyes, I. . .”

He trailed off. What could he say? What could he claim, and still pretend to be sane?

Despite his inability to articulate what he meant, Varric seemed to understand. The dwarf jerked his head, as if indicating that Cullen should come closer. Cullen obliged, leaning in. Behind him, he could hear Cassandra’s grunt of disgust.

“The Warden’s guarded by two dragons, so to speak,” Varric said, very quietly. “You’re not going to get anywhere with the dragon in her room, but the dragon upstairs? She might be persuadable. And if she tells her fellow guardian to let you past you actually stand a chance of getting in.”

“Speak plain,” Cullen snapped. Fortunately, Varric didn’t seem to take offense.

“Morrigan and Leliana love the Warden like they’re sisters. Either one of them would kill to protect her. And neither of them know why you want to see her. You have to admit, Curly, you’ve got a difficult history with mages. Especially this one.” Varric leaned in closer, and spoke fast. “They don’t know if you’re going to start lecturing her, or if you’re going to treat her like an abomination, or if you might want to see her so you can check to make sure she’s not some kind of magical freak now. They don’t know if you want to see her because you’re the Commander, the ex-Templar, out to make sure we’re all safe- or if you just need to see her because the woman you love is hurt.”

_Woman you love._

“I hardly know myself,” Cullen breathed. For some reason, that made Varric frown. Then he shrugged, and leaned back, spreading his hands wide with a confident smile that elicited another snort from Cassandra.

“That’s a problem, Curly, because the next step is convincing Leliana to tell Morrigan that she should let you visit Ivy,” Varric said. “We’ll walk through the details.”

“Will this take long?” Cassandra asked, resigned.

“No one said you had to come, Seeker,” Varric reminded her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support! We're not nearly done yet!


	13. Visiting Hours

Cullen's steps were heavy. Almost as heavy as his heart, his burning eyes. But he trudged up the steps to Leliana's rookery anyway. 

He'd run through what he could say wtih Varric for hours. Elicited more than a few disgusted grunts from Cassandra, and more than a few cutting comments about how he spoke of his feelings with as much grace as an eleven year old. 

Hearing Cassandra, of all people, advocate for some romantic proclamation surprised him so much he said a great many things he'd never said out loud before. But it wasn't until he unhooked his gauntlet and hurled it at the wall, denting the iron, his throat tight with a roar he couldn't let loose, in a burst of temper from being too close to weeping that Varric declared him ready.

He didn't feel ready. He felt like he was about to burst into tears any moment. As overwrought as he had been in the days after Ivy rescued him from the Tower, and as likely to snarl instead of speaking. He swallowed, hard, past the lump in his throat. 

Leliana and her agents did not look up at his approach. They couldn't be surprised, after all, since they'd likely seen and heard him coming up the stairs. She sat at her plain wooden table, reading some letter. He trudged over and sat down across from her. 

She said nothing, but she did glance up and twitch her lips into something that could be a smile of greeting. He couldn't stop the sigh that escaped his lips.

All he could do was start where Varric insisted he start. Even though it sounded really, really stupid.

"Leliana, I can't sleep." 

Despite Varric's insistence that this line was the exact place he should begin, over his objections, Leliana only raised an eyebrow at him.

"There are plenty of healers in this keep. Why tell me?" she asked, barely looking up from her letter.

"Because I want you to tell Morrigan to let me in to see Ivy," he said, bluntly. That got her attention. But not in the way he'd have wanted. Her air of amused confusion soured, and she leaned back away from him with narrowing eyes.

"Why? So you can see for yourself that she's safe?"

"Yes," he said. Then clamped his mouth shut so his voice wouldn't crack. All that useless chatter with Varric did nothing but break his hard-won control. He should have known better.

"And you think you're best suited to test that?" Leliana shook her head. "Commander, Morrigan and Ivy have extensive experience with abominations. They are better suited to gauge if she's a danger to--"

"No," Cullen interrupted, half snarling. "I need to see her. I can't. . . I don't care about danger. I just need to. . . " Despite his best efforts, his voice did crack. He hid his head in his hands, elbows leaning against the table. "She could die. And I'd never. . ."

"She will not die." Leliana's voice was softer than he'd ever heard it. "Morrigan is very capable."

"Then let me see for myself," he insisted. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, to stifle any idiot tears, and rubbed his face hard before lowering his hands and leaning back. His ears burned with humiliation-- Leliana was looking at him in a speculative way she'd never looked at him before. He croaked out, "Please."

"What would you do if you were allowed to see her?" Leliana asked. His chest clenched. He honestly did not know. He just wanted to sit down next to her and talk, make sure she was going to be all right. 

"I could. . . bring a chess set, if she is up to it. Or. . . I could read to her. She has previously thought my taste in books somewhat entertaining." His fist clenched in his lap and he consciously smoothed it out. How had that never come up in the hours of talking with Varric? He'd have some choice words for the dwarf later.

"I would think you'd want to take the opportunity to make sure she's really still her," Leliana said, her voice somewhat dry and matter-of-fact. He'd never had that tone turned on him before, but he'd heard it. His brow furrowed, gaze rising from the table to meet her eyes. 

"You think I'm a threat?" he asked, bewildered, responding more to the tone than the words. She simply opened her hands, palm up, and looked back at him blandly. "I could never. . . I am no longer. . . I am not the man I was. You know that."

Or perhaps she didn't.

He stifled the urge to scream. Or throw something. Or storm off. Or. . . 

Instead he took three deep breaths, and focused. Just as he'd been taught. 

"When I was a Templar, I would have cut anyone down who I believed to be a magical threat. Even Ivy. She knows that. At her harrowing I. . . I would have, if she had not passed. I would have killed her." It was strange how much easier it was to say this than it had been to say the things Varric wanted him to say, even though he'd never said this out loud, either. "I joined the Inquisition because I could not be that man any longer. I saw in Kirkwall how little safety is purchased with all that bloodshed. I am not. . ." 

He swallowed, hard. His hand crossed, his chest, clenched in the soft fur of the pelt he wore instead of his old spiked pauldrons. Couldn't everyone see, couldn't everyone tell, that he had worked so hard to find another path? To live a softer life, secure in the Maker's true will instead of simply following the rule of the Chantry? It was so hard to find the path that was actually right instead of just the one that he'd been told was right. 

"I could not harm Ivy now," he said, hoping that she could believe him. Because if she couldn't then somehow he had not shown her, who he worked with so closely, how he had changed. "If you are keeping me from seeing her because she is now an abomination like you say Wynne was, you have no need to fear for her safety. It would. . . change things, and there would be decisions to be made. By Lavellan, at a start. But I would not. . . I could not. I could not do anything to harm Ivy and retain my own soul. Now now."

"Ah," Leliana muttered, her hand pressing over her heart. She stared at him for a long moment. "Are you telling me that you wouldn't cut down an abomination now, Commander?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I would- the same way you would. And did, back in the Circle Tower. I remember, Leliana. I am telling you. . . that Wynne was different from those monsters."

"Hmm." Leliana's nails tapped against the table. "As it happens, Ivy is still simply herself. But she is very ill. It is important to guard her not only from physical danger but from heartache and disappointment."

"I can let her win at chess?" Cullen said, confused.

"You misunderstand, Commander. What if we allow you in to visit her and she confesses some old romantic feelings? She is vulnerable."

His chest clenched again, his fest tightening over his heart in sympathy. He cleared his throat. Twice. Before daring to speak.

"I would never take advantage of someone who is injured. Anything she says . . . she could say again, when she is better. I give you my word I've never taken advantage of someone's feelings and I'm not about to start now."

"Hmm." Leliana's nails tapped the table again. "You said you can't sleep?"

"I. . . Varric thought you should know that," he blurted out, then clamped his mouth shut, feeling like an impatient child. But Leliana didn't so much as smirk.

"Why can't you sleep?" 

"Because I don't know she's all right. It's so much worse now, knowing she's in pain, I keep hearing her screaming while they did that spell and I . . ." he clamped his mouth shut again. "No doubt it sounds very foolish. I wish I did not have to bring all of this to you. But Morrigan is very insistent that I, specifically, not be allowed to see her and I just don't know when I will get to speak to her again."

Leliana regarded him for a moment in silence. Then she stood, and gestured for him to rise as well.

"Varric was right. In fact, I think you should tell Ivy about that, too. I will speak to Morrigan on your behalf. But be careful, Commander. If you do anything- anything!- that hurts Ivy in any way I will make sure you never sleep again. Am I clear?"

He bowed, a tiny irresistible smile threatening to turn the edges of his mouth. "Yes, ma'am."

Then he fled. Before he made more of a fool of himself by following all that heavy drama up with grinning like a child.

But he wasn't lucky enough to make it back to his office in peace. Varric was waiting for him down in the chamber that Solas used to use. And the dwarf fell right in step beside him.

"Well?" Varric asked. The grin broke free.

"She'll talk to Morrigan."

"Good man!" Varric clapped him on the back, his hand landing somewhere distinctly below Cullen's shoulder blades. "Now, to do something about your appearance. . ."

"What?" Cullen stopped in his tracks. "My. . . what? I look like I always look."

"I'm not arguing that Curly but I do think you want to present your best side, under the circumstances, don't you? At least take a bath," Varric suggested. Cullen scowled. 

"I bathe perfectly regularly, thank you."

"And right now you look like you've been tearing your hair out and beating yourself up instead of sleeping. I'm just saying, you're not supposed to look like you're the one who's been in the sick room." Varric held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "But that's up to you. My work here is done."

Cullen scowled harder. Varric fell away from his elbow and went to see to his own affairs. But was the dwarf wrong? 

A bath couldn't hurt, could it?

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

"I think I hate ginger tea," Ivy complained. Morrigan rolled her eyes. The dark-haired mage burned Ivy's soiled bedsheets and clothing with quiet efficiency, leaving only little scorch marks in the empty fireplace. When she was done, she turned around and directed a stream of ice at the cup in Ivy's hand. 

"Try it cold," she suggested. 

"I still hate it cold," Ivy said, but she took an obedient sip anyway. Her stomach roiled. "Is this ever going to get better? I haven't had female trouble since I became a Warden- is it all just never going to end?"

"It already is better than it was," Morrigan reminded her. She clapped her hands together as if to dust them off. "And if you continue your childish complaining I shall begin telling you tales of giving birth alone in a cave." 

"Yes, yes, you're very brave. But you know you didn't have to do that. I would have helped you if you would have just let me," Ivy reminded her. Morrigan rolled her eyes.

"So you have said, many dozen times. And yet here we are with me very decidedly helping you and not the other way around. Drink your tea," Morrigan admonished her. Ivy glared down at the cup.

"And I'm bored!"

"That means you're getting better."

Ivy's grumbling was interrupted by a knock at the door. Morrigan, ever somewhat paranoid even here in the heart of Skyhold, readied a blast of ice in one hand and answered the door with the other. 

"I come bearing some of Skyhold's finest gruel and a fresh night dress," Leliana said, sweeping past Morrigan. The witch shut the door behind her. Leliana did in fact have a warm bowl of something, and a shockingly flouncy cotton dress slung over one arm.

"What is it you want?" Morrigan asked. Leliana did not take offense at Morrigan's bluntness. Instead she got right to the point.

"I just had a talk with Commander Cullen--"

"Don't tell me you're taking the man's side, Leli!" Morrigan groaned.

"And he wants nothing in the world more than he wants to come read to you, Ivy," Leliana said, ignoring this outburst. Ivy's heart fluttered, rising to her throat. 

"He's just being suspicious," Morrigan protested. Leliana shook her head.

"I believe he's genuinely concerned, and not a threat. So it comes down to whether or not you want to see him, Ivy. It's entirely your choice-- you can have him as a visitor or I can keep him away, whichever you prefer."

Ivy's hands twisted her bedsheet. She schooled herself not to put a hand over her fluttering heart, so that she would not give Morrigan undue concern. 

"I'm not playing duenna to a Templar," Morrigan snapped. Leliana glanced at her. 

"I thought I might take over the watch for the night. Give you some time to spend with your son," Leliana suggested. That got Morrigan. She subsided, clearly thinking about it. It couldn't be much fun for her to stay in this cramped stinking room either.

"I have been bored," Ivy said, slowly. "And it would be nice to have him come read to me. I think. . . yes."

"Idiots," Morrigan muttered. But Leliana smiled. 

"I think having a bit of company may do you good," she said, without so much as twitching an eye at the grumbling witch. "Now, let's see about getting you into something fit to be seen . . ."

*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Cullen's feet didn't feel heavy anymore. That might have something to do with the fact that he wore only his plain leather boots and breeches with a shirt and vest, instead of his usual armor. He felt somewhat underdressed. But at least he knew his freshly-scrubbed skin couldn't give off any offensive smell, nor his clean clothes. Armor does always smell a bit metallic, and the pelt he habitually wore had taken on the scent of thousands of candles and hearthfires. 

He had a book tucked under his arm that Ivy had once identified as one of her favorites- a book of children's tales quite different from the child tales told by the Chantry. 

When he knocked on her door at the exact time Leliana told him, it was the spymaster herself who greeted him. 

"Come in, Commander," she beckoned, and opened the door wide. He tried not to smile when he crossed the threshhold. 

But then the scent hit him.

A common sick-room odor, cramped air and sour stomachs and the tang of blood. And over it all the haze of magic. 

In a moment he was transported back to the days following the Circle Tower massacre- survivors gibbering in rooms just like this. His guts rebelled, and he had to breathe a bit through his mouth to avoid true embarassment. He almost turned and left. His head began to ache immediately, either from the sudden terrible tension in his shoulders or a simple relived memory of pain. 

But he didn't turn around. Because there she was, sitting up in her bed, wearing something ridiculous and flouncy that he could only reason had been put on for him. She looked pale, the circles under her eyes dark. 

But she smiled at him.

"Hello, Ivy," he breathed, and he knew that no matter what this room reminded him of he'd spend as much time here as he was allowed. 

"Hey," she said, waving her hand. She seemed. . . fine. Mostly fine. No worse than if she'd simply taken a bad infection. Something deep inside him loosened in releif.

He crossed the floor and sat on the little stool next to her bed, and he held out the book. "I thought it might be refreshing to have someone read to you. . ."

"I love this book!" Her smile widened. Meeting her happy gaze made him smile back, reflexively. "Did you remember that?"

"Of course," he said, softly. He cleared his throat, unsure of what else to say. In silence the smell reminded him of old bad things, and he couldn't simply sit and reminisce over terrors. Not if he wanted to help her. So he opened the book, and simply began reading. 

After a few moments, he felt something touch his arm. He looked down and saw Ivy's hand- not quite gripping his wrist, but simply laying next to it, as though she drew as much comfort from seeing him as he did from seeing her. He clasped her hand in his own and kept reading. 


End file.
